Nature's Protection Superior Care White Dogs Adult Small & Mini Breed: With Lamb review

Both varieties finish in one band, and how differently they get there is worth seeing. The white fish recipe sits in our Average band, a step under the Good band where the typical adult dry food finishes. A 41% named fish declaration and a cereal free base hold it up. The lamb recipe joins it in our Average band, and the reason it reads lower inside that band is structural. Nothing in the bowl is troubling. Rice, poultry fat and barley all appear before the lamb, and the lamb itself carries no percentage. Protein is declared at 21%, and we estimate the meat content at around 17.3% of the recipe. Its protein and processing reads Poor, with nutritional balance at Average and transparency Good. The meat share is what holds it back, and not the printing. It is still a complete food for a small white dog that suits it. There is simply less animal behind it than behind its stablemate.

Ingredients, as declared: rice, poultry fat, barley, lamb meat (dried and finely ground), soy protein isolate, hydrolyzed chicken liver, salmon oil, linseed, sugar beet pulp, dried eggs, micronized dynamic clinoptilolite (1%), fructooligosaccharide (FOS), dried cranberry, borage oil, chicory extract, green tea, dried marigold, grape seed extract.

The white fish recipe opens at 41%, declared dry and finely ground. Its water has gone before the weighing, so that percentage largely survives into the finished kibble. Protein converts to 26.4% of dry matter and fibre to 4.4%, the higher of the two on both counts.

The lamb recipe is put together on a different plan. Rice, poultry fat and barley take the first three places, the lamb sits fourth with no percentage against it, and soy protein isolate follows as a plant protein source. Protein is declared at 21% and fat at 18%, so the energy leans towards the fat side. The label prints no moisture figure at all, so the dry matter readings on this variety work from an assumed 8%, the usual level for a kibble.

The pale-coat idea shows up in the small print of both. Lutein comes from the dried marigold, catechins from the green tea, and the plant form of omega 3 from linseed. The lamb recipe goes further with dried cranberry, borage oil and grape seed extract. Grape seed needs a word of explanation, not worry. The trouble with grapes belongs to the fruit itself, and what is used here is the pressed seed residue, an antioxidant.

Both varieties carry salmon oil, and the white fish recipe adds krill flour at a declared minimum of 4%, which gives it the stronger marine position of the pair. Neither recipe suits a dog being kept off fish.

The lamb recipe carries a few doses the fish one does not, with taurine at 1200 mg and DL-methionine at 2.5 g, two amino acids with roles in heart function and coat condition. Vitamin C at 600 mg and zinc sulphate at 145 mg sit alongside them. Calcium works out at 0.87% of dry matter in the lamb and 1.32% in the white fish, both comfortable adult levels.

Beyond that the tails are short and sensible. The fibre work falls to sugar beet pulp, FOS looks after the friendly bacteria down in the large intestine, and clinoptilolite at 1% binds. Rosemary extract and tocopherols from vegetable oils close both labels, keeping the fats from turning rather than adding anything nutritional.

Rice, poultry fat and barley lead, with dried lamb fourth and unquantified, then soy protein isolate and hydrolysed chicken liver. Dried egg, borage oil, cranberry and grape seed extract fill out the tail, and the additives run further than the fish recipe's, taurine at 1200 mg and DL-methionine at 2.5 g included. It is the variety to look at when palatability is the problem you are solving and grain is not.

£6.06 a kilo across both varieties. The lamb is sold in 1.5kg and 10kg bags, the white fish in 1.5kg.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is about 218 grams a day of the lamb, at £1.32, or about 250 grams of the white fish, at £1.51. These are small and mini breed recipes, so a real bowl in this house will be a fraction of that, and both energy figures are estimated rather than declared.