Nulo Baked & Coated Small Breed Adult review

Our scoring settles this one in the Excellent band, one place above the Good band where the average adult dry bag comes to rest. Protein converts to 32.6% of dry matter and the estimated carbohydrate to 34.8%, comfortably under the 46.2% that is typical of adult dry food. Better still, the label declares 8% moisture. Those conversions come from a printed figure, and the transparency that buys is part of why the placing holds up.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh chicken (23%), dehydrated chicken proteins (19%), sweet potato, chickpeas, lentils, chicken fat, fresh turkey (4%), fresh duck (4%), linseed (3%), hydrolysed chicken protein, minerals, chicken broth (1%), salmon oil (0.5%), dried apples, dried carrots, pea fibre (0.5%), autolysed inactivated yeasts, chicory inulin, coconut oil (0.1%), dried blueberries, dehydrated pumpkin (0.01%), products from the processing of herbs (Curcuma longa).

The chicken headline is built from 23% fresh chicken and 19% dehydrated chicken proteins, and printing that split is worth something. Most of the fresh chicken's weight is water, and the oven takes it. The dried entry at 19% is doing much of the finished kibble's protein work. Behind them, fresh turkey at 4% and fresh duck at 4% give the recipe a second and third bird without unseating the first.

Sweet potato, chickpeas and lentils carry the starch, with pea fibre at 0.5% for bulk. Of that group, sweet potato is the one to want for a small dog, since it brings fibre and a useful amount of vitamin A with its starch. No cereal appears on the list at all.

Linseed at 3% is the recipe's plant omega 3 source. The marine form comes from salmon oil at 0.5%. The two work at different speeds. A dog is slower to convert the plant version into the skin-active forms than it is to take them straight from fish. Judge a coat after a few weeks, not a few days.

The small print is generous for a bag this size. Taurine is dosed at 1,270 mg per kilo, DL-methionine at 2,445 mg, and every trace mineral is declared twice in two separate forms, with zinc the largest at 98 mg and 42 mg per kilo. Chicory inulin is there to feed a live Enterococcus faecium culture, the declared gut flora stabiliser. For a small dog with a temperamental digestion that is a sensible pairing.

What follows is decoration. The dried apples, carrots and blueberries are pleasant enough on a label, and so are dehydrated pumpkin at 0.01% and coconut oil at 0.1%, but they are not what makes this food work. The chicken and the short starch list are, and they are put first on the label.

Sold in 2kg and 5kg bags.

The label's own feeding table starts at 27 grams a day for a 1kg dog and reaches 165 grams for a 10kg one, so most small breed households will sit somewhere between the two. Let the waistline set the portion. Two dogs of the same weight rarely burn it at the same rate.