The Innocent Hound From The British Countryside Recipes: From the Coast review

From the Meadow and From the Woodland both land in our Excellent band, and From the Coast sits alongside them in the same band. The three sit close enough together to read as one range. There is no semi-moist cohort for us to line them up against, so the reading comes from the labels. A very high named meat share and percentages on most of the small entries push all three upward, while the short added panel keeps them from climbing further. All three read Outstanding for nutritional balance and transparency, with value Excellent and protein and processing Good, so the result has the same shape across the range.

Ingredients, as declared: Atlantic salmon (85%), sweet potato, salmon oil (2%), kelp (1%), spinach (1%), honey (0.5%), dill (0.5%), psyllium husk (0.5%), parsnip

At 85% on all three labels the meat share is a big headline, and it is named to species and to country. With moisture declared between 16% and 17%, very little of that share is water, so the analyses come out strong. Protein converts to between 36.1% and 53.9% of dry matter, and the estimated carbohydrate never climbs far.

The only substantial carbohydrate here is sweet potato. That is why the estimate tops out at 17.9% of dry matter on the coast recipe and falls to 11.9% in the woodland. Psyllium husk at 0.5% closes each list, a soluble fibre that steadies digestion, with parsnip bringing up the rear.

Salmon oil does the omega work throughout, at 1% in the lamb, 2% in the salmon recipe and 4% in the venison. That last figure is the largest oil inclusion here and it is earning its place in a very lean game meat. It also means the venison and lamb labels carry fish, which matters only to a household steering around it.

The herb and berry tail is what sets this range apart from anything else on the shelf. Kelp at 1%, spinach at 1% and dill sit on the coast recipe; peppermint at 1.5%, rosehip, chamomile and dandelion leaf fill the meadow; blackberry, mushroom, nettle and hawthorn berries give the woodland its name. Each is declared at around half a percent, so read them as character rather than medicine, though a maker printing them one by one is telling you exactly what is in the bag.

The added panel is deliberately short. Zinc, iron, manganese, copper and iodine are dosed on all three, with zinc at 45mg, and the meadow and woodland recipes add vitamin D3 at 800IU where the coast recipe carries none. No vitamin A, vitamin E or taurine is printed on any of them, which is unusual on a complete food and is the part of the label we would most like to see filled in.

Atlantic salmon at 85% with salmon oil at 2% on top, so every animal ingredient on this label is fish and nothing else. For a dog off land meats altogether, this is the recipe here. Kelp at 1%, spinach at 1% and dill fill the tail, and it carries the highest carbohydrate estimate of the three at 17.9% of dry matter, which is still a modest figure. Its added panel is the one without vitamin D3.

From the Coast and From the Meadow are £32.00 a kilo, and From the Woodland is £42.00 a kilo. All three come in a 1kg bag.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats between 191 and 220 grams a day, depending on the recipe. The basis is around 840 kcal a day, from 110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate. That comes to £6.11 a day on the meadow recipe, £6.79 on the coast and £9.24 on the woodland.