Naked Dog Original: Kangaroo review

No field we score is tougher than raw, and its middle takes our Outstanding band, so matching that is already a fine result. All ten do that, with the Pork the strongest food in the range and the rest bunched closely behind it. The Beef & Kangaroo is one of two that tell you less about themselves, and the reason is on the label, not in the bowl. Its beef is declared as one grouped 75% covering meat, bone and five organs, with no cut by cut breakdown, so its transparency reads Good, as the Kangaroo's does, where eight others read Outstanding. Nothing about that makes it a lesser dinner, it simply tells you less.

Ingredients, as declared: Kangaroo Trim, Kangaroo Tail Butt (Total Kangaroo 40%), Chicken with bone (35%), Beef Tripe, Beef Kidney, Beef Liver (Total Beef 10%), Carrot, Butternut Squash, Green Vegetables, Blueberries, Salmon Oil, Kelp (Seaweed), Wheat Grass Powder.

The construction repeats with small variations. A named meat with bone leads, an offal set follows, and then the same short plant tail on every tub: carrot, butternut squash, green vegetables, blueberries, salmon oil, kelp and wheatgrass. Most labels percentage each entry individually, which is exactly the transparency raw feeders shop for, and the two that group their figures say so plainly.

Bone arrives inside the meat, the way raw is meant to work, with no mineral addition doing that job. None of the ten prints a calcium figure. Crude ash is the only proxy, and it swings a long way, from 3.7% of dry matter on the bone free Pork to 15.3% on the Beef & Kangaroo. The Pork is the odd one out by design, with antler powder standing in for ground bone. Reach for it if bone fragments have ever been a problem for your dog.

The offal is the part most ranges skimp on and this one does not. Across the ten you will find tripe, kidney, liver, heart, lung, even trachea. Organs are where the bulk of an animal's copper sits, along with vitamin A and the B vitamins. There is a consequence though, and it is the one thing to hold on to while you browse. The tripe, kidney and liver are almost always beef, whatever the tub is called, so beef runs right through the range.

With no premix, the micronutrition is asked to come from food. Kelp handles iodine, salmon oil brings marine omega 3, liver covers the fat soluble vitamins and the B group, and green vegetables and blueberries add antioxidants. Wheatgrass is made from the leaf and stem of the plant, not the grain. It carries no gluten and reads as a natural supplement. It is a coherent position and the offal shares are what make it hold together.

Carbohydrate is either zero or close to it on most of the ten, exactly as a meat and offal recipe should read. The Duck looks larger at 12.8% of dry matter. Nothing on any of these lists could supply starch, so that figure is arithmetic the analysis has left over. The vegetables are the only plant matter of substance, and even they sit behind the meat.

Kangaroo trim and tail butt total 40%, with chicken with bone at 35% supplying much of the bone and a grouped beef offal share at 10%. Protein converts to 54.5% of dry matter, among the highest here, and at 136 kcal per 100g it is one of the more concentrated tubs in the range.

Every recipe is £5.98 a kilo. They come in 500g tubs and in boxes of 5kg, 10kg, 15kg and 20kg.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, taking about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), a day lands between £3.03 on the Pork and £4.68 on the Venison. Energy density explains the spread, since the leaner tubs feed in bigger portions. Naked Dog's own chart is flat across the range at 375 grams a day for a 15kg dog.