Nulo Raw Medley Small Breed Adult review

This one earns our Excellent band, a clear step up from the Good band where the typical adult dry food finishes. Turkey and chicken between them hold protein at 33.2% of dry matter, with estimated carbohydrate at 35.9% and 46.2% the norm for adult dry food. Both figures assume 8% moisture, since no label figure is declared. For a small breed recipe, where energy density often crowds the meat out, that is a genuinely meat-forward panel.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh turkey (18%), sweet potatoes (14%), dehydrated chicken proteins (13%), dehulled oats, dehydrated turkey proteins (10%), lentils, fresh duck (4%), chickpeas, chicken fat, fresh chicken (3%), hydrolysed chicken protein, linseed, minerals, fresh chicken (42% in the freeze- dried pieces*), chicken heart (30% in the freeze-dried pieces*), pea fibre (0.5%), autolysed inactivated yeasts, chicken liver (10% in the freeze-dried pieces*), chicory inulin (0.2%), fresh pumpkin*, fresh kale*, fresh broccoli*, fresh blueberry*. *freeze-dried pieces typically 3% of the product.

Fresh turkey leads at 18%, and that word fresh matters. Much of that weight is water, and it will not survive the oven. The dried entries are what survive it: dehydrated chicken proteins at 13%, dehydrated turkey proteins at 10%, and between them much of the finished kibble's protein. Fresh duck at 4% and fresh chicken at 3% round the animal side out.

Sweet potatoes at 14% are the biggest plant entry and a good one, bringing far more fibre than a common potato along with a generous amount of vitamin A. Dehulled oats sit behind them, digestible once cooked and useful for their own fibre, with lentils and chickpeas filling in. It is not a grain-free food and does not claim to be.

The freeze-dried pieces are the recipe's party trick. They are typically 3% of the product, and their own make-up is printed: fresh chicken 42%, chicken heart 30%, chicken liver 10%. Offal of that kind is nutrient dense and about as tempting as food gets to a dog that has been picking at its bowl, which is exactly the small dog this bag is aimed at.

Linseed supplies plant omega 3 while chicory inulin at 0.2% and the autolysed inactivated yeasts feed the gut's friendly bacteria, with a live Enterococcus faecium culture declared as a gut flora stabiliser. Pea fibre at 0.5% adds a little bulk without taking up much room.

The added nutrients are all in print. Taurine is dosed at 1,205 mg per kilo and DL-methionine at 2,415 mg. Every trace mineral turns up twice, in two separate forms, with zinc the largest at 98 mg and 42 mg per kilo. A tocopherol extract does the preserving. The freeze-dried pumpkin, kale, broccoli and blueberry live inside those raw pieces, so read them as a flourish.

Sold in 1.8kg and 4.5kg bags.

The label's feeding table starts at 29 grams a day for the smallest dogs and reaches 166 grams for one between 8kg and 10kg. Two small dogs on the same scale reading can want very different portions, so let the waistline have the last word.