Specific CXD-S Adult Small breed review

Our scoring puts this in our Average band, a step under the Good band the everyday adult dry shelf occupies, with protein and processing reading Poor while transparency reads Good. The reasons are all legible on the label: cereal and maize protein ahead of the fish meal, a hydrolysate that names no animal, and not a single meat percentage printed. A model cannot see the rest: this is a competently assembled small-dog food from a clinical brand, with chelated trace minerals and four amino acids given a printed dose. It will feed a small dog perfectly well day after day. It simply does not read like a recipe drawn up to impress anyone reading the ingredient panel.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, maize protein, fish meal, pork fat, beet pulp, minerals, animal protein hydrolysate, fish oil, vitamins and trace elements (including chelated trace elements), egg powder, lysine, methionine, threonine, tryptophan, rosemary extract. With natural antioxidants (tocopherols and vitamin C).

Wheat in first place and maize protein in second is the shape of an older-school kibble. Maize protein is the concentrated protein fraction left after the starch is taken out of maize, and it is genuinely effective at lifting a declared protein figure. What it cannot do is match meat for the balance of amino acids a dog actually needs, which is precisely why lysine, methionine, threonine and tryptophan appear further down the list.

Fish meal is the animal ingredient and the best thing on the list. Rendering and grinding drives most of the water out, so what goes into the mixer is a dense powder of fish protein, fats and minerals. Weight for weight, meal therefore lands far more in the finished kibble than fresh fish does. The frustration is that no percentage is printed at all.

The energy comes from pork fat, and the label says so. Many do not. Pork is a meat few dogs have eaten much of, so it rarely causes trouble, though its fat is included here for calories and palatability rather than as a protein source. Fish oil adds the long-chain omega 3s behind it.

The four amino acid top-ups are a signal, not a worry. Lysine and threonine are essential building blocks a dog must eat, tryptophan sits behind serotonin and a settled mood, and methionine looks after coat and skin. Adding them in print is how a maker makes sure a cereal-heavy recipe still delivers a complete amino acid profile. Egg powder just above them helps with the same job.

Beet pulp handles the fibre at a gentle 2.1%, the trace elements come chelated for better uptake, and the recipe is preserved with rosemary extract alongside tocopherols and vitamin C. It is a short list with no botanical parade and nothing decorative, which is either refreshing or plain depending on what you were hoping to find.

£5.90 a kilo, sold in 1kg, 4kg and 7kg bags.

The standard maintenance estimate for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), would put the daily amount at roughly 225 grams, or £1.33 a day. That is a far bigger dog than this bag is written for. The label itself asks 25 grams a day at 1kg, 90 grams at 5kg and 150 grams at 10kg, and with portions that small it is worth weighing rather than scooping.