Sausage Dog Sanctuary Food Chicken & Rice review

This one finishes in our Good band, and two forces roughly cancel to put it there. Working for it, chicken is declared at 29% with 26 of that already dried, so the meat named on the label genuinely arrives in the kibble instead of cooking away. Every animal ingredient bar one is named. Working against it, estimated carbohydrate reaches 55.4% of dry matter where the typical adult dry food runs at 46.2%, because rice, barley and oats between them take up a large part of the recipe.

The other figure holding the reading down is fat at 8.7% of dry matter. Here the score and the purpose part company. A lean recipe is exactly what a dachshund-shaped dog with a spare tyre needs, so read that number as a design choice and not a shortfall.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 29% (including Dried Chicken 26% & Chicken Fat 3%), Rice (26%), Barley, Oats, Beet Pulp (2%), Dried Fish, Brewers Yeast, Minerals, Vitamins, Yucca Extract (190 mg/kg)

Chicken is declared at 29%, and the breakdown printed with it does the real work: 26% dried chicken and 3% chicken fat. Dried chicken parts with its water long before the mixer. That 26% therefore arrives in the bowl at close to its listed weight, a stronger position than a larger fresh meat headline would leave you in. Protein reads 26.1% of dry matter.

Rice at 26% comes first on the plant side, with barley and oats next. Once cooked, all three digest easily. Barley and oats also bring more fibre and micronutrients along than a plain refined starch would. Between them they lift carbohydrate to an estimated 55.4% of dry matter, above the 46.2% typical for an adult dry food. The cereal weight here is a design choice.

Fat is the number that shapes this food. At 8.7% of dry matter it sits well below what most kibbles carry, which is precisely what you want for a small dog whose weight creeps up between vet visits. The flip side is that a dog in hard work will need a fuller bowl here to keep condition on.

Dried fish appears after the beet pulp. It is a small entry and it brings marine omega 3 with it, worth having on a label that is otherwise short of an oil. Anyone keeping a dog strictly off fish does need to know it is there. It is also the one animal ingredient the label does not pin to a species.

Beet pulp at 2% supplies the fibre, brewers yeast adds palatability and B vitamins, and yucca extract is dosed at 190 mg/kg, a plant extract usually included with digestion and stool odour in mind. After that the composition simply says minerals and vitamins. No doses are attached, and there is no trace mineral panel to read on this bag.

£5.00 a kilo, sold in 2kg, 6kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 254 grams a day on an assumed 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £1.27 a day. Drawn up for much smaller dogs, the label's own table asks 110 to 140 grams for a 6 to 8kg dog. Work from whichever guide fits your own dog.