Scooch Air Dried Skin & Coat Wellness review

Our reading places this in our Excellent band, and the four pillars fan out beneath it: Outstanding for protein and processing and for transparency, Average for nutritional balance, Excellent for value. There is no established air dried group to measure it against, so nothing here is a comparison with anything else. The band comes from a label that names and percentages almost everything, a chicken share of 74.7% with the liver counted separately at 6%, and doses printed on the functional extras.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (74.7%), Chicken Liver (6%), Dried Sweet Potato, Vegetable Oil Glycerine (derived from Rapeseed Oil), Minerals, Dried Fermented Whey, Dried Blueberries, Chia Seeds, Flaxseed, Ascophyllum Nodosum, Chicory Root, Beet Pulp, Spinach (0.25%), Calcium Carbonate, Dried Carrot. Glucosamine HCL 2,000mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 2,000mg/kg, Methylsulfonylmethane 1,000mg/kg

Air drying takes the water down slowly and stops short of a crisp, leaving 18.0% declared moisture in the finished piece. That is what gives the food its texture, somewhere between a kibble and a soft treat. The result carries 391 kcal per 100g, so portions are smaller than the same dog would eat of anything from a tray.

Chicken at 74.7% is the whole meat story, with chicken liver named separately at 6%. Splitting the liver out is a small honesty that tells you something real. Little else a dog eats is packed as densely with nutrients, and liver earns its place on any label that bothers to count it. Protein converts to 27.3% of dry matter and fat to 28.2%, so this is a fat-forward recipe by design, which is part of how a coat food works.

The skin and coat cast is entirely plant and sea. Chia seeds and flaxseed both supply alpha linolenic acid, the plant omega 3. The difference is worth stating plainly. Dogs convert that form into the longer chain fatty acids of fish oil only slowly, so a plant-led coat food works more gently than a marine-led one. The brown seaweed ascophyllum nodosum supplies iodine and trace minerals. Dried blueberries, dried carrot and spinach at 0.25% round it out.

The rest of the list does housekeeping. Dried sweet potato is the starch. Beet pulp adds a moderately fermentable fibre, inulin comes from chicory root to feed the gut bacteria, and dried fermented whey brings a fermented dairy element. The oil is declared as glycerine derived from rapeseed, a humectant that stops the pieces hardening in the bag, and calcium carbonate tops up the minerals.

The joint ingredients close the label, and each carries a dose in milligrams per kilogram: glucosamine hydrochloride, then chondroitin sulphate and methylsulfonylmethane. Printed doses are what separate a genuine inclusion from a name on a bag, and all three are printed here.

The added panel is chelate based. Iron, copper, zinc and manganese all arrive as protein hydrolysate chelates, a form usually chosen because more of it is absorbed. Vitamins A and D3 are dosed alongside. Selenium arrives as sodium selenite. Pet food allows two forms and this is the one in almost universal use.

£38.66 a kilo. It comes as a 1.5kg pack, with the same recipe also sold as two packs at 3kg and three packs at 4.5kg.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 215 grams a day, based on roughly 840 kcal a day from the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. That works out at around £8.31 a day. The label's own table is almost identical, putting a 15kg dog at 214 grams.