Natural Greatness Ultra Premium Adult Mini Breed: Salmon Recipe review

Both recipes reach our Good band, and that is where the adult dry category tends to finish as well. The distance between them is short and easy to explain. The rabbit keeps every meat entry on one animal and holds its fat modest. The salmon puts potato protein fourth and draws most of its fat from chicken, not from the fish pictured on the bag. Both are sound small dog food; they simply answer different questions.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated salmon (20%), Potatoes, Fresh salmon (10%), Potato protein, Chicken oil (9.5%), Yeast, Beet pulp, Salmon hydrolysate (2%), Salmon oil (1.5%), Linseed, Mineral Substances, Glucosamine 650 mg/kg, Chicory, Mannan-oligosaccharide, Citrus extract (grapefruit, orange, tangerine and bergamot), Chondroitin 150 mg/kg, Yucca schidigera.

Each recipe opens with a dehydrated meat. For a kibble that is the right way round. Drying happens before the percentage is calculated, so the figure on the label survives into the bowl more or less intact. A fresh meat headline is a much smaller thing once the oven has been at it. The rabbit declares 26% dehydrated with 10% fresh behind it; the salmon declares 20% dehydrated with 10% fresh.

Rabbit is the reason to look at the first recipe. Few dog foods use it, so many dogs have never eaten rabbit at all. A meat a dog has never met is one it cannot yet have reacted to. Hydrolysed rabbit at 3% keeps the meat side on that one animal from top to bottom. The honest caveat is the fat and oil: pork fat at 1.7%, salmon oil and sunflower oil all appear, so this is a single meat recipe rather than a single animal one.

The salmon recipe reads richer in every respect, at 28.5% protein and 16.5% fat with 388 kcal per 100g, and carbohydrate down at 40.2% of dry matter. Its fat comes from chicken oil at 9.5%, which is worth knowing given the fish on the label, with salmon hydrolysate at 2% and salmon oil at 1.5% adding to the fish content. Potato protein takes fourth place. It is a plant protein, and it will not match what meat provides even as it lifts the declared figure.

The rabbit recipe has by far the fuller plate behind its meat, with carrot, pumpkin, apple, cranberry, tomato, spinach and seaweed all there by name. Linseed adds plant omega 3s, and beet pulp adds gentle fibre. The salmon takes the tidier route: linseed, beet pulp and chicory, then a citrus extract made from grapefruit, orange, tangerine and bergamot working as an antioxidant.

Both labels dose taurine, at 850 mg on the rabbit and 1000 mg on the salmon, which supports heart muscle and is a good thing to see printed on a grain free food. Both carry prebiotics: FOS and MOS at 0.1% each on the rabbit, mannan-oligosaccharide on the salmon, feeding the gut bacteria that keep a dog comfortable. Yucca schidigera is on both lists for one practical reason: stool odour.

The richer, fish led option, with dehydrated salmon at 20%, fresh salmon at 10%, salmon hydrolysate at 2% and salmon oil at 1.5%. It runs at 28.5% protein and 16.5% fat for 388 kcal per 100g, the more useful build for a busy little dog. Its joint doses are lower, at 650 mg/kg glucosamine and 150 mg/kg chondroitin. Chicken oil at 9.5% is the main fat source.

Both recipes are sold in 2kg and 6kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 245 grams a day on the rabbit and about 216 grams on the salmon. The maths behind that is around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). A dog that size is above the weight these small breed bags are written for. Closer to home, the rabbit label asks 190 grams a day for a 10kg dog and the salmon label 137 grams for a quiet one of the same weight.