Pooch & Mutt Wellbeing Health & Digestion Dry Food review

Where our scale places this food is squarely mid shelf, in the Good band the dry adult middle also occupies, and two things pull in opposite directions to put it there. The construction is unusually clean, with one named fish supplying every animal ingredient and almost every minor entry carrying a percentage, which is why the transparency pillar reads Outstanding. Against that, the headline salmon is fresh and loses its water in the oven, the finished protein is on the gentle side, and the starch share runs above what is typical for a dry food. For the dog this was written for, one with a temperamental stomach, that trade sits the right way round.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh Salmon (25 %), Sweet Potato (22 %), Salmon Protein (16.2 %), Potatoes, Peas, Salmon Oil (1.5 %), Salmon Gravy (1.5 %), Alfalfa (1.5 %), Dried Beet Pulp (1.5 %), Linseed (1.5 %), Dried Parsley (1 %), Brewer´s Yeast (1 %), Psyllium Husk & Seeds (0.8 %), Dried Cranberries (0.04 %), Glucosamine (0.026 %), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.016 %), Mannaan-oligosaccharides (0.015 %), Fructo-oligosaccharides (0.01 %), Mojave Yucca (0.01 %), Lactobacillus acidophilus HA-122 inactivated (15x10⁹ cells/kg).

The best thing about this label is what is absent from it. Four entries on the whole list carry an animal, and all four are salmon: fresh salmon at 25%, salmon protein at 16.2%, salmon gravy at 1.5%, then salmon oil at 1.5%. No unnamed animal fat, no hydrolysate borrowed from a second species, no generic fish meal. That is exactly what an elimination diet needs and rarer on a shelf than it ought to be.

Read the meat figures in the right order, though. Fresh salmon is mostly water, and cooking removes it. Salmon protein at 16.2% therefore supplies more of the finished kibble than the headline suggests. Protein converts to 26.7% of dry matter and fat to 13.3%, an everyday balance rather than a performance one.

The digestive work is spread across several entries instead of loaded into one. Psyllium husk and seeds at 0.8% is the soluble fibre here, soaking up water and firming things up. Beet pulp at 1.5% is the steadier partner alongside it. Mannan-oligosaccharides at 0.015% feed the bacteria you want to encourage, and fructo-oligosaccharides at 0.01% do the same job. The Lactobacillus acidophilus culture is declared inactivated, and that is deliberate. A heat treated culture survives the bag and the kibble oven, and its cell fragments still have something to say to the gut.

None of the starch here is cereal. Sweet potato takes 22%, with potatoes and peas behind it. Alfalfa at 1.5% and dried parsley at 1% add greens, and brewer's yeast at 1% brings B vitamins with a savoury note that helps a reluctant eater get started. Estimated carbohydrate converts to 48.8% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical, so the starch is doing more than a bit part.

Two more entries carry a figure at the tail of the list: glucosamine at 0.026% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.016%. They are modest daily inclusions, well short of a treatment dose. Salmon oil supplies marine omega 3 and linseed at 1.5% adds the plant form, so the fats are covered from both directions without a second animal appearing on the label.

£5.83 a kilo, in 1kg, 2kg, 10kg and 12kg bags, with a 2kg small kibble alongside them.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, feeding comes to about 235 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), or £1.37 a day. For a dog of 10kg to 25kg the label asks 175 to 350 grams, and the waistline gets the casting vote.