Millies Wolfheart Salmon & Veg review

Salmon & Veg earns our Excellent band, one rung up from the Good band where the typical adult dry food finishes. Sticking to a single fish takes nothing away nutritionally: protein converts to 33.2% of dry matter, fat to 18.5% and estimated carbohydrate to 31.4%, comfortably under the 46.2% the typical adult dry food carries. The contents are not the problem. It is the shape of the list that holds it back, with a fresh entry at the top ahead of the dried one and four separate starches strung out below it.

Ingredients, as declared: Freshly Prepared Salmon (46%), Dried Salmon (18%), Potato (7%), Sweet Potato, Tapioca, Chickpeas, Salmon Oil (5%), Pea Fibre, Minerals, Lucerne, Salmon Gravy (1%), Dried Apple, Dried Carrot, Dried Cranberry, Aniseed & Fenugreek, Dried Seaweed, Dried Spinach, Mixed Herbs, Joint Pack (Glucosamine 195.5 mg/kg, Methylsulfonylmethane 195.5 mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 137.5 mg/kg), Fructooligosaccharides (FOS, 370 mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (MOS 370 mg/kg), Burdock Root, Dried Camomile, Dried Dandelion, Dried Peppermint, Yucca Extract

Salmon appears four times on this label and no other animal appears at all. Freshly prepared salmon at 46% heads the list, dried salmon at 18% backs it up, salmon oil at 5% brings the omega 3s and salmon gravy at 1% brings the flavour. Baking drives the water off the fresh entry, which leaves the 18% dried salmon doing more in the finished kibble than its position on the list suggests. On a dry matter basis the analysis reaches 33.2% protein.

That single animal is the entire point when a dog is on an exclusion diet. There is no unnamed fat, no hydrolysed protein and no oil borrowed from a second species to muddy the picture. Labels that clean are rare. It also means an owner who knows their dog is fine on salmon can read this list from top to bottom without a single question mark.

Potato at 7% is the only starch with a percentage against it, with sweet potato, tapioca and chickpeas following unquantified. Binding is about all tapioca adds, being so close to pure starch. Chickpeas bring fibre and some plant protein along with their carbohydrate. Lucerne and pea fibre add bulk from the middle of the list.

The small print is busier here than on most labels. The joint pack runs to glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 195.5 mg/kg each with chondroitin sulphate at 137.5 mg/kg. Prebiotic FOS and MOS are both dosed at 370 mg/kg, and what they feed is the gut bacteria. L-carnitine appears at 67 mg and methionine is added and dosed. Some of the zinc and iron comes as amino acid chelates, at zinc 154 mg and iron 96 mg per kilo, and a gut takes that form up more readily.

Below the working ingredients comes the botanical tail: apple, carrot, cranberry, spinach and seaweed, there for the label as much as for the dog. Yucca extract has the one practical reputation of the group, going into plenty of foods to make stools less pungent.

£5.32 a kilo, sold in 700g, 5kg and 14kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats around 230 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes out at £1.22 a day. The bag's own table asks 150 to 175 grams for a dog of that size, so trust the waistline over the chart.