Wellness Core Adult: Lamb review

The salmon and the turkey finish in our Excellent band. The lamb takes Good, a step below, level with the middle of the adult dry shelf. The label shows what earns those placings: a named animal at the head of every list, and the fresh and dried shares given separately. Carbohydrate is held well below the dry food average, and the supplement panel puts a figure against everything it adds. Nothing here is exotic. It is a well built recipe repeated carefully three times, and there is no wrong turning among them, so protein preference should decide it.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb 38% (Fresh Lamb 20%, Dehydrated Lamb 18%), Peas 20%, Potato Protein, Potatoes, Rapeseed Oil, Beet Pulp 3%, Natural Flavour, Brewer's Dried Yeast (source of mannan-oligosaccharides) 3%, Linseed 3%, Lignocellulose, Apples, Carrots 0.5%, Yeast Extract (source of mannan-oligosaccharides) 0.5%, Dried Chicory Root (source of Fructo-oligo-saccharides and Inulin) 0.5%, Broccoli, Spinach 0.01%, Tomatoes, Blueberries, Cranberries, D-Glucosamine Hydrochloride 100 mg/kg, Chondroitin Sulphate 100 mg/kg, Yucca Schidigera, Mixed Herbs (Dried Rosemary, Dried Turmeric, Dried Citrus, Dried Eugenia).

Every recipe opens with an animal and then breaks it down. The lamb is 38%, split 20% fresh and 18% dehydrated. The salmon is 32%, evenly split between fresh and dehydrated, and dehydrated tuna at 13% sits behind it. The turkey is 28% between its fresh and dehydrated entries, and chicken at 25% follows as dehydrated chicken, chicken fat and chicken gravy. That split is worth printing. Fresh meat is mostly water, the oven takes the water out, and it is the dehydrated share that really carries protein into the finished kibble.

Most of the binding falls to peas: 20% of the lamb recipe and 16% of the salmon. Potato sits alongside them as dried potato or potato protein. There is nothing wrong with whole peas, which bring fibre and antioxidants of their own. An entry that size is always partly a structural decision, though. Notice the potato protein. It puts a plant source behind part of the protein figure, where a meat source would have done.

Fibre and gut work is handled the same way in each bag. The fermentable side is beet pulp, at 3% or 4%. Lignocellulose brings bulk with barely any calories, being a purified plant fibre and never pressed from a whole vegetable. The prebiotic work goes to dried chicory root and yeast extract at 0.5% each, a pair that keeps the gut bacteria supplied.

Glucosamine hydrochloride and chondroitin sulphate are declared at 100 mg/kg each across the range, a working amount rather than a therapeutic one, but printed and therefore comparable against other bags. Linseed at 3% supplies plant omega 3 in all three. The lamb and the salmon both declare taurine at 1500 mg per kilo, the amino acid people connect with heart muscle.

The run of broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, blueberries and cranberries at the end of each list is genuinely small, with some entries printed at 0.01%. They are a flourish, and these recipes stand up perfectly well without them. The mixed herbs of rosemary, turmeric, citrus and eugenia handle the natural preserving, and yucca schidigera is the familiar entry aimed at stool odour.

Lamb at 38%, split 20% fresh and 18% dehydrated. The list names no other animal at all. A natural flavour is left unspecified, so it is not a cast iron single protein recipe for elimination purposes, but it is as close as this range comes. The added oil is rapeseed, not an animal fat. Brewer's dried yeast at 3% puts a second prebiotic source on the list, and vitamin E is dosed at 400 mg per kilo, far higher here than elsewhere in the range. Protein converts to 32.6% of dry matter and fat to 16.3%.

Sold in 10kg bags, with a smaller size alongside for a first try.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs between 229 and 239 grams a day depending on the recipe, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). For a 20kg dog the labels ask 245 grams on the lamb and 255 grams on the other two. Where your dog lands between those is a question for the waistline.