Pooch & Mutt Veterinary Sensitivity Dry Food review

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon Protein (30 %), Yellow Peas (27 %), Hydrolysed Salmon Protein (18 %), Buckwheat (8 %), Coconut Oil (7 %), Dried Apple Pulp (6 %), Salmon Oil (3 %), Pea Protein, Dried Algae (Ascophyllum nodosum, 0.4 %), Mannan-oligosaccharides (0.02 %), β-glucans (0.02 %), Dried Sea Buckthorn (0.015 %), Fructo-oligosaccharides (0.013 %), Mojave Yucca (0.013 %), Lactobacillus helveticus HA-122 inactivated (15x10⁹ cells/kg).

Salmon and nothing else supplies the animal side here. Salmon protein leads at 30%, hydrolysed salmon protein adds a further 18% and salmon oil brings 3% more. Nothing else on the panel carries a species at all. That makes this a genuine single-protein recipe and an unusually easy label to read if you are part way through an exclusion trial.

Yellow peas at 27% carry the starch, buckwheat adds 8% and dried apple pulp 6%, with pea protein listed after them and no percentage beside it. Coconut oil at 7% does the job an animal fat would usually do in a dry food, and keeping the fat plant-based is part of what holds the animal side to one species.

The dosed additions are small and each printed with its figure: dried algae at 0.4%, mannan-oligosaccharides and beta-glucans at 0.02% apiece, dried sea buckthorn at 0.015%, then fructo-oligosaccharides and Mojave yucca at 0.013%. An inactivated Lactobacillus helveticus culture rounds the list off at 15x10⁹ cells per kilogram, the same culture used across this part of the range.

With the water taken out, protein reads 30.0% against the 27% as fed, and fat 15.6% against 14%. Crude fibre converts to 2.3% of dry matter, the carbohydrate estimate to 43.8%, and energy is given as 372 kcal per 100g. Ash comes out at 8.3% of dry matter and calcium at 1.44%, figures that follow from a fish protein bringing its own bone mineral in with it rather than from anything added afterwards.

The guide on the bag covers dogs from the smallest sizes up to 50kg, suggesting 165 to 330 grams a day for a dog of 10 to 25kg and 555 grams at the top end. Whether a diet kept to one fish is the right route for your dog, and how long to run it for, is a decision that sits with the vet handling the case.

It is packed in 2kg and 10kg bags, at £7.40 a kilo. Around 226 grams a day for a 15kg dog puts that close to £1.67 daily.