Symply Adult Small Breed review

Our scoring puts this small breed recipe in the Good band, level with the middle of the adult dry category but a shade ahead of it. The openness of the label does most of the lifting. Transparency reads Outstanding, protein and processing Good and nutritional balance Average, and nothing on the label needs excusing. Turkey at 47.3% is a large named share and the split behind that number is printed, not implied. Protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter and carbohydrate lands at 46.2%, precisely the figure the typical adult dry food carries. It gets there without a single unnamed animal entry anywhere on the list, which is what pushes it clear.

Ingredients, as declared: 47.3% Turkey (Fresh Turkey 26%, Dried Turkey 16.5%, Turkey Fat 3.2%, Turkey Gravy 1.6%), Sweet Potato (13.7%), Potato (12.2%), Whole Oats (12.1%), Pea Starch, Peas, Alfalfa, Salmon Oil (1%), Whole Egg, Cranberry, Carrot, Apple, Broccoli, Marigold Flower, Bilberry, Spinach, Prebiotic - Fructooligosaccharides (0.04%), Peppermint.

Every scrap of meat in the recipe is turkey, declared at 47.3%. The label breaks that down: 26% fresh, 16.5% dried, 3.2% turkey fat and 1.6% turkey gravy. Fresh meat is largely water by weight, and the oven takes that off. The 16.5% dried figure is what actually arrives in the kibble, and printing both halves of the sum makes the headline number readable. Turkey is leaner than chicken and sits easily on the digestion. Small dog recipes reach for it constantly, and that is the reason.

Sweet potato at 13.7%, potato at 12.2% and whole oats at 12.1% split the starch almost exactly three ways, and whole peas and pea starch follow behind. Sweet potato brings fibre and vitamin A that ordinary potato does not, and oats add soluble fibre and cook down gently. The result is carbohydrate at 46.2% of dry matter, which matches the middle of the adult dry category, though this recipe gets there with a great deal more named meat standing in front of it.

The marine omega here is salmon oil at 1%, and a dog puts it to work on skin and on coat and joints. Whole egg contributes a small quantity of protein with an exceptionally complete amino acid profile. Both are good entries. They are also why an elimination diet on one protein cannot be run on this food.

The tail is short and recognisable. Alfalfa, cranberry and carrot come first, then apple, broccoli, marigold flower, bilberry, spinach and peppermint, with fructooligosaccharides declared at 0.04% as a prebiotic fibre for the large intestine. None of it is load bearing, and the recipe never leans on that list to look better than it is.

Zinc is declared twice, at 90 mg as the oxide and again at 45 mg as an amino acid chelate. Chelated zinc is the form a gut absorbs most easily. Copper sits at 10 mg, iodine at 2 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg per kilo. Calcium works out at 1.85% of dry matter, a comfortable level for a small adult dog, and ash sits at 7.5%.

£6.25 a kilo, sold in 2kg and 6kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 239 grams a day. On about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), that comes to £1.49 a day. Almost every dog on this recipe will be a great deal lighter than that, and the label asks 50 grams for a 3kg dog and 120 grams for a 10kg one.