Wagg Meaty Goodness Adult: Beef Dinner review

Good is where our scoring leaves the chicken dinner, level with the middle of the adult dry category, with the beef dinner a band under it in Average. The arithmetic behind it is plain enough: protein converts to 22.0% of dry matter, fat to 8.8%, and estimated carbohydrate to 56.1%, so cereal makes up the bulk of what a dog eats. Nutritional balance reads Poor on both as a result, with protein and processing at Average on the beef and Good on the chicken. Transparency lifts to Good because the label prints its percentages and additive doses instead of hiding them behind a blend.

Ingredients, as declared: 26%, Meat Meal & Gravy* (with min 5% Beef*) Whole Grain Wheat, Whole Grain Barley, Vegetable Fibre, Maize, 2% Chicken Fat (source of Omega 6), Whole Linseeds (source of omega 3), 2.3% Dried Green Peas & Beet Pulp*, Minerals & Vitamins, Chicory Root (1000 mg/kg), Yucca (150 mg/kg). 28% Meat Ingredients, with Beef and Veg*equivalent per 100g to: *min 40g hydrated animal ingredients with min 20% Beef, *min 10g Vegetables from dried peas and beet

The 26% meat meal and gravy at the front is the construction Wagg uses across its adult foods. Meat meal is a dried, rendered protein concentrate. The useful part of this particular label is its footnote: 28% meat ingredients. Per 100g of kibble that works out at 40g or more of hydrated animal ingredients, with the named meat at 20% or more of it. That is more detail than many labels at this level bother to give, and it still leaves most of the animal content unnamed.

The structure comes from whole grain wheat and barley, with maize and vegetable fibre behind them. Left whole, both hold on to fibre and micronutrients that milling strips out, and nearly every dog digests them comfortably. Wheat is worth naming because it is the grain most commonly linked to intolerance, and barley brings gluten with it too.

Dried green peas and beet pulp share a single 2.3% entry, and the vegetable fibre listed earlier is very likely beet pulp under another name. As a fermentable fibre, beet pulp helps firm a stool, which is a fair reason to see it here. It is doing more for digestion than for the vegetable count.

Chicken fat at 2% carries omega 6 and whole linseeds carry the plant form of omega 3. Chicory root at 1000 mg/kg is a prebiotic for the large intestine's own bacteria. Yucca at 150 mg/kg is the standard addition for stool odour.

The two dinners part company where you would least expect it, in the additive panel. The beef dinner adds vitamin C at 50 mg and splits its zinc between 75 mg as the oxide and 25 mg as an amino acid chelate. A dog generally absorbs the chelate more readily. Copper comes in at 10 mg and iodine at 2 mg. The chicken dinner keeps the simpler panel, with zinc at 50 mg and iron at 50 mg per kilogram.

Beef Dinner names beef as its guaranteed meat and carries the fuller additive panel of the two. Vitamin C comes in at 50 mg, and the zinc splits between 75 mg of oxide and 25 mg of chelate. Manganese sits at 50 mg, copper at 10 mg and iodine at 2 mg per kilogram.

Sold in 1kg, 2kg and 12kg bags in both dinners.

Portioning is the same across the pair: about 265 grams a day for a 15kg adult in moderate condition, on an assumption of roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The bag's own table runs from 75 grams for a 3kg dog up to 525 grams for one of 40kg. Let the waistline, and not the table alone, set the scoop.