Vet's Kitchen Protect & Care review

Our scoring settles this in the Good band, where a typical adult dry food also finishes. Construction and transparency get it there, not raw protein. Salmon at 38.5% is written out share by share, the supplements carry doses, and the recipe plainly knows who it is for. The nutritional balance reading comes back Average, which follows from the figures: carbohydrate at 54.9% of dry matter sits above the 46.2% typical, and fat is deliberately held at 9.2%. For an older dog with a slower engine that is a reasonable trade, and no shortfall.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon 38.5% (including Freshly Prepared Salmon 26%, Dried Salmon 10%, Salmon Stock 1.5%, Salmon Oil 1%), Brown Rice 26%, White Rice, Oats, Beet Pulp, Chicken Fat, Minerals, Brewer's Yeast, Glucosamine 355mg/kg, Methylsulfonylmethane 355mg/kg, Mannanoligosaccharides 315mg/kg, Fructooliogosaccharides 315mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 250mg/kg, Yucca Schigidera Extract, Seaweed Oil Extract, Beta Glucans, Nucleotides.

The 38.5% salmon splits four ways, with freshly prepared at 26% and dried at 10%, then stock at 1.5% and oil at 1%. The fresh share is the biggest of those and the one to read carefully, since the oven drives off most of what it weighs. That is why the finished protein lands at 25.0% of dry matter rather than higher, and why the dried 10% is quietly the harder working entry.

Brown rice at 26%, white rice and oats do the carrying between them. Oats carry fibre and a decent spread of minerals along with their starch. Rice is about as easy on a dog's digestion as a cereal gets, and that is rather the point in a recipe aimed at older dogs.

Taurine at 475mg per kilo is the entry that marks this one out from its stablemates. Dogs make their own taurine, so it is not strictly required in the bowl, but it turns up in foods that are thinking about the heart and here it is dosed rather than merely mentioned. L-carnitine at 155mg and methionine at 1,500mg sit alongside it.

The joint set carries numbers too. Glucosamine and MSM sit at 355 mg/kg each with chondroitin sulphate at 250 mg/kg, and both prebiotics are dosed at 315 mg/kg. A live Enterococcus faecium culture appears as the gut flora stabiliser, with beta glucans and nucleotides behind it. The whole panel reads like a label written by someone who expected it to be checked.

Chicken fat is the single entry that does not fit the salmon story. It is a perfectly good fat and most dogs will never give it a thought. It does mean the recipe is salmon led and not salmon only, and that counts when you are pinning down what your dog reacts to. Zinc and iron come partly as chelates, a form a dog takes up more readily than a plain sulphate.

Sold at £5.03 a kilo, in 3kg, 7.5kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition gets through about 243 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £1.22 a day. The label's own table asks 140 to 300 grams for a dog between 11kg and 25kg, so let the waistline place your dog within that range.