Nature's Protection Superior Care Red Coat Adult Grain Free: With Salmon review

Both recipes reach our Good band. That is level with the result an average adult dry food returns, and what lifts these two sits in the first line of each label. The meat is declared dry and finely ground, so its percentage survives the oven instead of shrinking in it, at 38% in the lamb and 43% in the salmon. Transparency reads Excellent on the pair, with protein and processing and nutritional balance both at Average. Protein is the modest part of the picture, declared at 25% in the lamb and 26% in the salmon, and the lamb also carries the heavier mineral load of the two.

Ingredients, as declared: 43%salmon (dry and finely ground), dehydrated potato pulp, peas, sweet potato, bird fat, krill flour (4%), sugar beet pulp, salmon oil, monocalcic phosphate, dynamic micronized clinophyllol (1%), Linaza, fructooligosaccharides (FOS), cassava extract, dry blueberry, dry calendula (lutein source), glucosamine (250 mg/kg), chondroitin sulfate (100 mg/kg)

The named meat leads both labels, and both are declared dry and finely ground, the lamb at 38% and the salmon at 43%. That form matters as much as the number: a dried meat percentage is weighed after its water has gone, where a fresh one loses most of its weight in cooking. Protein lands at 27.5% of dry matter for the lamb, 28.6% for the salmon.

The base is genuinely free of grain. The starch comes from dehydrated potato pulp, from sweet potato and from peas, with cassava extract holding the biscuit together. Carbohydrate is estimated at 43.3% of dry matter for the lamb and 41.2% for the salmon. Both sit under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

The Red Coat name is not only packaging. L-tyrosine is dosed at 500 mg, L-cystine at 1 g and L-tryptophan at 500 mg, and tyrosine in particular is the amino acid a dog's body draws on when it makes the darker pigments. What any of that shows in a given animal depends on that animal's genetics and starting point. The honest reading is that the recipe keeps the pathway well supplied, and it promises no change of colour.

Krill flour at 4% is the standout entry on both lists. Krill is a marine crustacean and brings omega 3 in the form dogs use directly, with salmon oil and linseed adding to it. Between them they are why the coat and skin case here rests on oils spread through the whole recipe, with no single supplement at the end doing the job.

The joint support here is printed, not implied. Glucosamine is given at 250 mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 100 mg/kg, both with their doses on the ingredients list. A label that prints the milligrams is telling you something that a label saying only 'with added glucosamine' is not.

The rest of the list is short. Sugar beet pulp handles the fibre, and FOS feeds what lives lower down the gut. Clinoptilolite at 1% acts as a binder and is a natural volcanic mineral, with dried calendula in as a lutein source. Selenium comes as sodium selenite. Two forms are permitted in Europe, and this is the more common of them, taken up a shade less readily.

Salmon at 43%, the larger meat declaration of the pair, with dried blueberry joining the tail and monocalcium phosphate in place of the dicalcium form. Fat runs richer at 17.6% of dry matter. Bird fat aside, every animal ingredient in it comes from the sea, which makes it the natural choice where land meats are out.

£6.50 a kilo in both varieties, sold in 10kg bags.

As a guide, set a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition at around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is about 244 grams a day of the lamb and about 235 grams of the salmon. The lamb comes to £1.59 a day and the salmon £1.52. Neither energy figure is declared, both being estimates, so start from the daily amount and let the waistline settle it.