Millies Wolfheart Surf & Turf review

Surf & Turf reaches our Good band and finishes well clear of the middle of the adult dry shelf, which lands in that same band. What earns the gap is simply how much of this bowl is animal. Protein converts to 37.0% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 34.2%, a good way under the 46.2% the typical adult dry food carries. The one thing keeping the food from reading better still is the unnamed dried fish, since everything else on the list can be traced back to a species you could point at.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried Fish (17%), Dried Salmon (13%), Freshly Prepared Beef (8%), Freshly Prepared Scallops (8%), Freshly Prepared Whelk (8%), Freshly Pepared Pork (8%), Sweet Potato (8%), Potato, Tapioca, Chickpeas, Pork Fat (5.5%), Salmon Gravy (1.5%), Tomato Pomace, Salmon Oil (1%), Minerals, Joint Pack (Glucosamine 177.5 mg/kg, Methylsulfonylmethane 177.5 mg/kg, Chonrdroitin Sulphate 125 mg/kg), Mixed Herbs, Dried Apple, Burdock Root, Dried Camomile, Dried Carrot, Dried Cranberry, Dried Dandelion, Aniseed & Fenugreek, Dried Seaweed, Dried Peppermint, Yucca Extract

The animal list here runs longer than most labels manage. Dried fish leads at 17%, dried salmon follows at 13%, then freshly prepared beef, scallops, whelk and pork each appear at 8%. Opening with two dried entries is the useful part, because dried meat and fish arrive already stripped of their water and carry their protein straight through the oven rather than losing most of it there.

Scallops and whelk are the entries nobody expects to find. Both are lean shellfish, and about as novel as a protein gets in a British dog food. That makes the recipe interesting for a dog already acquainted with chicken, lamb and beef. Pork sits in much the same position, still uncommon enough that a great many dogs have never eaten it.

Dried fish is the one entry that will not say what it is. The word covers a whole category. There is no reason to think less of it for that, though it does mean the label cannot anchor a strict single fish plan. The salmon, by contrast, is named wherever it appears, in the dried meat, in the gravy and in the oil.

Sweet potato at 8% is where the plant side begins, with potato, tapioca and chickpeas behind it and not a grain in sight. Tapioca holds the kibble together and little more, being so near to pure starch. Tomato pomace adds a little fibre, and it is the skins and seeds left after juicing. The fats come from pork fat at 5.5% and salmon oil at 1%.

Joint support is set out in figures rather than promises: glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 177.5 mg/kg with chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg. Every mineral has its figure too: zinc and iron at 48 mg, manganese at 34 mg, copper at 5 mg and iodine at 0.96 mg per kilo. Below that come herbs, then apple, burdock root, camomile and carrot, cranberry and dandelion, seaweed, peppermint and yucca extract, all of it trace level and there for the story.

£5.39 a kilo, in bags of 700g, 5kg and 14kg.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 226 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That puts the day rate at £1.22. The waistline is the better arbiter, though the guide printed on the label runs from 150 to 175 grams for a dog of 10kg to 15kg.