Wainwright's Sensitive Adult Dry Food review

This one comes out Excellent, a band clear of the Good the median adult dry food holds, and the ingredients list explains that at a glance. Nine entries in total, more than half of them salmon, protein up at 32.6% of dry matter and carbohydrate down at 34.7% where 46.2% is typical for a dry food. The pillars run from Good on protein and processing and nutritional balance up to Excellent on value and Outstanding on transparency. A recipe this short is easier to score well and easier to feed to a dog whose gut objects to complication, since there is very little in it to be the culprit.

The one thing keeping it from the band above is the plant side, where a single ingredient does all the work. The mineral panel also leans on oxide and sulphate forms for most of its trace elements.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon (55%) (Freshly Prepared Scottish Salmon* 30%, Salmon Meal 22%, Salmon Digest 3%), Sweet Potato (26%), Salmon Oil (8%), Beet Pulp (8%), Krill Meal (0.9%), Seaweed Meal (0.1%), Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic FOS) (0.05%), Green Lipped Mussel Extract (0.05%), Yucca Extract (0.02%).

Salmon at 55% is broken into three declared parts: 30% freshly prepared Scottish salmon, 22% salmon meal and 3% salmon digest. The meal is the part that matters most. Fresh fish is largely water, and the oven claims most of it, so a 22% meal share is what carries protein through to the finished kibble. It reads 30.0% on the panel, converting to 32.6% of dry matter on the 8% moisture a kibble usually holds, since this label does not declare it. The digest is a palatant, and naming the fish rather than hiding behind a general term is the sort of thing that makes a sensitive food usable.

Only one starch appears, sweet potato at 26%, and that is unusual and deliberate. With one carbohydrate source there is only one thing to take out if it turns out to be the problem. Sweet potato also releases its starch more slowly than most cereals. Carbohydrate finishes at 34.7% of dry matter, well under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. That is what a meat share this large does.

Salmon oil at 8% is a big inclusion and the reason fat reads 17.0%. It brings marine omega 3 already made up, in the form a dog uses straight off with no conversion needed. That is the fat a coat responds to fastest. It also makes this an energy dense food, so a measured scoop beats a generous one on a quieter dog.

Krill meal at 0.9% and green lipped mussel extract at 0.05% are the two additions beyond the salmon, and both are shellfish. Krill is another marine omega source. When joints are the concern, green lipped mussel is the shellfish makers reach for first. They keep the food entirely marine, which is exactly what a dog avoiding land meats wants, and they are the reason this cannot be described as salmon and nothing else.

Fibre comes from beet pulp at 8%. Chicory root extract at 0.05% feeds the gut bacteria as a prebiotic, seaweed meal at 0.1% carries iodine, and yucca extract at 0.02% is aimed at what happens after digestion. That really is the whole list.

The declaration prints vitamin A, vitamin E at 448 mg and L-carnitine at 25 mg. Then come iron at 32 mg, copper at 4 mg, manganese at 20 mg, iodine at 1.2 mg and selenium at 0.16 mg per kilo. Zinc is the entry to notice. It is split between 56 mg as zinc oxide and 40 mg as a chelate of protein hydrolysates. A gut absorbs the chelated portion more easily. Of all the trace minerals, zinc is the one skin depends on. Ash reads 10.0%. Using fish meal at this level brings a mineral and bone fraction with it.

Sold in 2kg and 12kg bags, at £6.50 and £4.58 a kilo respectively.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would get through about 222 grams a day, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), which comes to £1.01 a day. This is a dense food, so the label asks for less of it than most: 160 to 280 grams a day for a dog between 12kg and 25kg.