Wildways Adult Dry: Beef with Buffalo review

The two salmon listings settle in our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food. The beef and the duck step up into our Excellent band. The two salmon entries are one recipe listed twice, once for each bag size, and they finish level with each other, so nothing there bears on what goes into your dog. Across the range protein converts to between 27.2% and 28.3% of dry matter, and estimated carbohydrate to between 44.5% and 47.0%, right around the 46.2% typical for adult dry food.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh Beef (40%), Buffalo Protein (26%), Peas (14%), Poultry Fat (5%), Chickpeas (4%), Pumpkin (4%),Chicken Liver (2%), Dried Apple Pulp (2%), Salmon Oil (1%), Eggs Shells (1%), Pea Flour, Glucosamine (0.026%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.018%), Mannan-oligosaccharides (0.015%), Inulin (a source Of Fructo-oligosaccharides, 0.01%), Yucca Mojave (0.01%), Dried Milk Thistle (0.01%), Dried Rosemary (0.003%), Dried Curcuma (0.003%)

The 40% fresh meat headline needs the usual translation. The oven takes most of that fresh weight away as water, so the entry doing the real protein work in the finished kibble is the second one, a named dried protein at 26%. Read together, the animal content here is genuinely the biggest part of the recipe, and it is named to the species every time. Not many labels manage that.

The plant side is led by peas at 14%, then chickpeas at 4%, pumpkin at 4%, dried apple pulp at 2% and pea flour further down. There is no grain of any sort anywhere in the range, and no potato either.

One entry stops short of naming its animal, and that is the poultry fat. It could be chicken, duck or turkey. That is fine for most dogs, and it turns into a live question only when you are keeping a particular bird out. Salmon oil sits alongside it as the marine omega source, and chicken liver adds a nutrient-dense palatant.

The joint entries come with figures attached, glucosamine at 0.026% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.018%, with mannan oligosaccharides at 0.015% and inulin at 0.01% doing the prebiotic work. Small numbers, but printed ones, which is what lets an owner weigh them up.

The additive panel is a strong one. Taurine is dosed at 1,500mg, choline chloride at 1,800mg, vitamin C at 250mg and biotin at 0.5mg. Where a label prints its trace element block, those minerals arrive as chelates of protein hydrolysates. A dog's gut usually absorbs that form more readily. Selenium comes as a selenised yeast at 0.16mg, and not as the plainer mineral salt. That is a detail plenty of labels skip.

Egg shells at 1% are the calcium source, and the closing run of yucca, milk thistle, rosemary and curcuma sits at trace level, with the last two printed at 0.003%. That tail is the label's flourish. The meat above it is what the food actually stands on.

Fresh beef at 40% with buffalo protein at 26% behind it, the only pairing in the range built entirely on red meat. It is also the fattiest of the four at 16%, which is 17.4% of dry matter, so it has a little more fuel in it for a busy dog. For a dog grown weary of the everyday meats, buffalo is a useful place to land.

Beef with Buffalo and Duck with Chicken are £4.58 a kilo from the 12kg bag and £7.00 a kilo from the 2kg. Salmon with Herring is listed the same two ways, £7.00 a kilo at 2kg and £4.58 a kilo at 12kg.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, reckon on around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is about 225 grams a day of the beef, 226 grams of the duck and 222 grams of the salmon. From the 12kg bag that is £1.03 a day for the beef, £1.04 for the duck and £1.02 for the salmon, with the 2kg bag at £1.56 a day. The label's own table asks 145 to 250 grams for a dog between 12kg and 25kg. If that disagrees with the figures above, trust your dog's waistline.