Tribal Small Breed Adult review

All three land in our Good band, level with each other, and the typical cold-pressed food occupies the same band. Earning the position are the named fresh meat lead, the joint ingredients quoted as doses and a feeding guide genuinely written for small dogs. The starch fraction sits above the format's middle, and that caps it. The three finish level, so there is no stronger recipe to chase. Go by the meat your dog eats happily.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh duck (35%), Sweet potato (35%), Blue whiting fish (hydrolysed) (9.4%), Whole egg (7.5%), Beet pulp, Brewer's yeast, Salmon oil (0.6%), Sunflower oil (0.5%), Inulin (source of prebiotic FOS), Minerals, Herbal blend (0.25%; Parsley, Rosemary, Nettle, Chamomile, Sage, Thyme, Coriander leaves, Dandelion leaves, Liquorice), Glucosamine (980 mg/kg), Green lipped mussel (500 mg/kg), Chondroitin sulphate (450 mg/kg).

The construction is consistent to the gram. Fresh duck, salmon or turkey at 35% leads, sweet potato at 35% follows, and then hydrolysed blue whiting between 9.4% and 10% plus whole egg between 7.5% and 8% top up the animal side. Blue whiting is a small North Atlantic fish, and hydrolysing it breaks the protein down into a form that is easy on the gut and concentrated enough to move the analysis without adding bulk.

Duck is the reason to look here first. It is a meat most dogs meet rarely, digestible and well liked in taste trials, and it makes this recipe an easy sideways step for a small dog who has grown tired of chicken. The salmon and turkey are more familiar choices, and the turkey in particular gives the leanest analysis of the three.

Sweet potato at 35% does the binding and the carrying. Beet pulp brings a gentle fibre along, and inulin brings prebiotic FOS. Carbohydrate converts to between 50.6% and 53.7% of dry matter across the three, and 43.2% is the cold-pressed middle. Starch is doing real work in these pellets. Fibre sits between 2.6% and 3.0% of dry matter, which is modest.

The joint ingredients are printed as figures rather than mentioned in passing: glucosamine at 980 mg/kg, green lipped mussel at 500 mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 450 mg/kg on every recipe. That matters more in a small-breed food than the doses suggest, because small dogs put a lot of impact through their knees and elbows over a long life.

Moisture is left off all three panels, so the dry matter figures here are worked from the 8% moisture a pressed food is assumed to hold. It is a safe assumption for the format and it does not move the reading much, but it is worth knowing that the conversions are estimates rather than arithmetic from a declared number. Energy on the duck comes from the maker; on the salmon and turkey it is estimated.

Fresh duck at 35% makes this the only duck recipe the brand presses, with blue whiting at 9.4% and whole egg at 7.5% behind it. It is the richest of the three at 389 kcal per 100g, with fat converting to 15.8% of dry matter. It is also the one member whose energy figure is the maker's own. No calcium figure is printed on this recipe.

All three recipes are £9.20 a kilo, in 1.5kg and 5kg bags.

The label's guide is written for small dogs, from 25 grams a day at 1kg to 200 grams at 15kg on the duck and salmon, and 205 grams on the turkey. Taking a 15kg dog in moderate condition at about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) puts the same dog at roughly 216 grams of the duck. The salmon takes 232 grams and the turkey 249, which is £1.99, £2.13 and £2.29 a day.