Pooch & Mutt Wellbeing Health & Digestion Wet Food review

This one settles in our Excellent band, and the reasons are printed on the front. Two named animals do 60% of the work between them, the fish is given its species, the prebiotics have real names, and the carbohydrate figure sits well below what wet food usually carries. We score wet food well as a rule, and the middle of the adult shelf sits in the same band. Keeping pace with that company is a fair reflection of a tightly written label. The pea protein is the one entry keeping it from climbing further.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (40 %), Herring (20 %), Pea Protein (2 %), Carrot (2 %), Fenugreek Seeds (0.8 %), Hemp Pellet (0.5 %), Minerals, Fennel (0.1 %), MOS, FOS, Mojave Yucca.

Turkey at 40% and herring at 20% account for 60% of the pack, and naming the herring instead of writing fish is a small act of transparency that a surprising number of wet labels skip. Protein converts to 38.3% of dry matter and fat to 28.5%, a solid, meat led analysis.

Herring brings its own oils with it, the omega-3 sort that oily fish are prized for, so nothing needs pouring in afterwards to make the point. Hemp pellet at 0.5% adds a little more fat, this time of plant origin.

The digestive billing is earned in the fibres. The MOS comes out of yeast cell walls, the FOS out of plants such as chicory. Between them they encourage the useful bacteria of the large intestine. Crude fibre reads 11.5% of dry matter. That reading is high for a wet food, exactly what a recipe pitched this way ought to show. Mojave yucca closes the list, traditionally used to make the garden a more pleasant place.

Fenugreek at 0.8%, carrot at 2% and fennel at 0.1% are the seasoning. Fennel has a long history as a settler of stomachs, though at a tenth of a percent it is there for the idea more than the effect. Pea protein at 2% is the only entry doing meat's job on plant terms, and at that level it barely registers.

Minerals are listed as an entry of their own, and calcium converts to 0.85% of dry matter, comfortable for adult maintenance and gentle enough for a large breed puppy still filling out.

£13.27 a kilo, in a 150g pack available on its own or in a box of twelve.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 800 grams a day, working out at roughly £10.62, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The pack's own guide for a dog of 10 to 25kg runs from 550 to 1000 grams a day, which brackets that estimate neatly.