Wainwright's Small Breed Mature Dry Food review

Our Good band holds this one, along with the middle of the adult dry shelf. Transparency is what pulls it up: every ingredient is named, and almost all of them carry a percentage, which is more than most supermarket kibbles manage. Protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Average, and that is the grain doing it, with carbohydrate estimated at 50.2% of dry matter against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food. Fed to a small older dog with no known triggers, it reads gentle and unfussy rather than lacking.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (33%) (Dried Turkey 28%, Freshly Prepared Turkey 5%), Rice (26%), Whole Grain Barley (21%), Beet Pulp (6.5%), Whole Ground Oats (4.5%), Rapeseed Oil, Dried Peas (3% equivalent to 12.5% Peas), Linseed (2%), Dried Carrots (1% equivalent to 8% Carrots), Seaweed (0.2%), Glucosamine (0.05%), Yucca Extract (0.02%), Chondroitin (0.015%)

Turkey at 33% is split 28% dried and 5% freshly prepared, and that ratio is worth pausing on. Dried meat has lost its water long before the mixer, so the declared figure is near enough what the kibble finally holds. Plenty of recipes lead on a big fresh figure that shrinks away in the oven, and this one does not play that game. Protein settles at 27.5% of dry matter, a sensible figure. Turkey is naturally leaner than chicken, and that is why mature recipes reach for it so often.

The plant side is cereal, named precisely: rice at 26%, then whole grain barley at 21%, then whole ground oats at 4.5%. Wholegrains keep their bran and germ, so they bring more fibre and more trace minerals than the refined versions would. Carbohydrate is estimated at 50.2% of dry matter, above the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. A fair share of the carrying falls to the grain.

Beet pulp at 6.5% handles the fibre. Dried peas at 3% are printed as the equivalent of 12.5% fresh peas. Dried carrots at 1% stand in for 8%. That is a fair way to write a label.

Rapeseed oil is the added fat and linseed at 2% is the omega 3 source. Linseed supplies it in the plant form. A dog converts that to the active versions slowly, so a coat takes weeks to answer, not days. No fish appears anywhere in this recipe. For a dog who reacts to fish, that makes this an easy bag.

The small print is where the mature thinking sits. Taurine is dosed at 1000mg, and the heart is what that amino acid is best known for. Glucosamine and chondroitin are both listed for ageing joints, though at 0.05% and 0.015% they are gentle inclusions. Seaweed at 0.2% adds iodine, which is dosed again at 1mg in the mineral panel, and yucca extract at 0.02% earns its place out in the garden.

£4.75 a kilo, sold in a 2kg bag.

For a rough steer, feeding a 15kg adult in moderate condition comes to £1.23 a day, on about 259 grams and an assumed 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). This is a small breed food though, so the pack's own table is the more useful number: 90 to 175 grams for a dog between 5kg and 12kg.