Wainwright's Sensitive Small Breed Adult Dry Food review

Our scoring lands this in the Excellent band, a step above the Good band that holds the middle of the adult dry shelf. Nothing exotic gets it there. One named fish accounts for more than half the recipe, and the plant side is a single root. Percentages sit against almost every entry, right down to the yucca at 0.02%. Then there is the carbohydrate. It works out at 34.0% of dry matter, well under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

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%).

The 55% salmon headline breaks into three parts: 30% of it freshly prepared Scottish salmon, 22% meal and 3% digest. That split is the useful part. Fresh fish is mostly water. The oven boils that away. The 22% meal is what puts the bulk of the protein into the finished kibble. At that level it can carry the job comfortably. Protein converts to 33.0% of dry matter and carbohydrate to 34.0%, a good deal leaner on starch than most of the shelf.

One starch does all the work here, sweet potato at 26%. That keeps the list short and easy to read for a dog whose stomach has form. Beet pulp at 8% is the fibre. It ferments slowly and firms things up at the far end. The prebiotic is chicory root extract at 0.05%. The gut's own bacteria live on it. At that dose it is a nudge, not a full prebiotic charge.

The entry that stands out is salmon oil at 8%, third on the list where most kibbles tuck their fat much further down. It brings omega 3 in the marine form a dog can use directly, the form that shows up in a coat quickest. It is also the reason the fat declaration sits where it does.

Down at the tail, the sensitive brief gets its finishing touches. Krill meal at 0.9% adds more marine oils and seaweed meal at 0.1% brings iodine, the mineral the thyroid runs on. Green lipped mussel extract at 0.05% is a well known joint ingredient, though at that weight read it as a light touch rather than a proper dose. Yucca extract at 0.02% is the traditional answer to a strongly scented garden.

Each added mineral carries a dose in print, and zinc appears twice: 56mg as the oxide and 40mg as a chelate of protein hydrolysates. Chelated forms are generally taken up more readily. No mineral matters more to skin than zinc, so seeing it written twice on a food with this name makes sense. Selenium comes as sodium selenite at 0.16mg, the usual supplemental form across the trade, and L-Carnitine is dosed at 25mg.

£6.50 a kilo, sold in a 2kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would get through about 235 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That puts feeding at £1.53 a day. That reference dog is bigger than this food's audience, and the pack's own table is the better guide for a little one: 85 to 160 grams for a dog between 5kg and 12kg.