Platinum Vetactive Dry Hypoallergenic review

This one reaches our Excellent band while the typical adult dry food stops a band lower in Good, so it is doing better than the shelf around it. The reasons are easy to point at. Pork meal sits behind the fresh pork, so real animal protein survives the oven and the finished kibble declares 24% protein, or 29.3% of dry matter. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 42.1% of dry matter against 46.2% for adult dry food generally. Nothing on the list is vague, transparency reads Outstanding and both protein and processing and nutritional balance read Good, which is a tidier result than most labels manage.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh pork meat* 70 %, pork meal*, peas*, potato starch, lentils*, pork fat*, apple pulp*, salmon oil (omega-3), flaxseed oil (omega-3), rosemary extract. (*dried, cold-pressed, virgin, *Iberian pork only)

Fresh pork at 70% is the headline and pork meal is the reason the headline holds up. Fresh meat comes with a great deal of water in it, and the oven removes that, so a recipe leaning on it alone tends to finish lower on protein than its front label suggests. The dried meal here does the catching up, and the analysis shows it, with 24% protein declared as fed.

Pork is worth a moment on its own. It is easily digested and dogs tend to like it. In dog food it is still rare enough that a great many dogs have never tasted it. A meat a dog has never eaten is a meat they cannot already have reacted to, which is exactly what an elimination diet is looking for.

Peas, potato starch and lentils carry the starch. Fibre and a little plant protein come in with the peas and lentils. Potato starch is the pure binder that holds a grain free kibble together and brings nothing much else to the table. Estimated carbohydrate finishes at 34.6% as fed.

Every fat here is named, which matters on a food written for sensitive dogs. Pork fat says exactly what it is. Salmon oil and flaxseed oil cover the omega 3s, one marine and one from a plant. Last on the list is rosemary extract, the natural antioxidant that keeps those fats from turning.

What is missing is as deliberate as what is there. No cereal, no yeast, no botanical parade, no unnamed anything. Fibre is declared at 4.3% of dry matter and ash at 8.4%, with calcium at 2.2% of dry matter. The added minerals are dosed openly. Per kilo of food that is zinc at 150 mg, iron at 75 mg, manganese at 40 mg, copper at 19 mg, iodine at 3 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg.

Bags run from 1.5kg and 5kg up to 30kg, with every size above 5kg supplied as multiples of the 5kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 280 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label asks 165 to 190 grams for a dog of 12kg to 15kg, a fair gap, so weigh the food for the first fortnight and read your dog's condition rather than the scoop.