Within Adult & Senior Dry Salmon review

This recipe lands in our Average band, a step below most of the adult dry shelf, and it gets there on a mix of real strengths and one clear compromise. The strength is the animal side: one named fish, its own oil, and nothing else with a face on the list. The compromise is starch. Whole oats at 25% and sweet potato at 19.2% push estimated carbohydrate to 51.0% of dry matter, above the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. Potato protein and pea protein sit behind the salmon on the protein line. Protein still converts to 26.1% of dry matter, and for a dog that needs its animal ingredients kept simple, that combination counts for a great deal.

Ingredients, as declared: Freshly Prepared Salmon (26%), Whole Oats (25%), Sweet Potato (19.2%), Potato Protein (7.5%), Dried Peas (4%), Dried Carrot (4%), Rapeseed Oil (3.6%), Pea Protein (2.5%), Vegetable Gravy (2%), Minerals, Dried Pumpkin (1%), Salmon Oil (1%), FormulaBiotics™ - Inactivated Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) Fermentation Product (0.4%), Chicory Root Extract as a source of Prebiotic FOS (0.1%), Mannanoligosaccharides Prebiotic MOS (0.1%), Glucosamine (0.034%), MSM (0.034%), Chondroitin (0.024%), Yucca Extract (0.02%), Dried Blueberry (0.01%), Dried Rosemary (0.01%), Dried Seaweed (0.01%), Dried Spinach (0.01%).

Freshly prepared salmon at 26% is the whole animal story, and fresh means water. Much of that quarter of the recipe leaves in the oven, and no dried salmon sits behind it to top the protein back up. What remains still converts to 26.1% of dry matter, and fish protein is among the easier proteins for a dog to digest.

The single-fish build is the real reason to look at this food. No poultry oil, no unnamed animal fat, no meat derivatives: the added oil is rapeseed, which is low in saturated fat, and the only other animal entry is salmon oil at 1%. For a dog being worked through an exclusion diet, that is a short and readable list.

Two supplements sit slightly outside that promise. Glucosamine is usually made from shellfish and chondroitin from animal cartilage, and this label does not say where either came from, so a household being strict about crustaceans should ask the maker before starting.

Whole oats at 25% and sweet potato at 19.2% do the starch work, with dried peas and dried carrot at 4% each behind them. Oats digest easily once cooked and bring useful fibre with them, and fibre lands at 4.9% of dry matter, a helpful level for an older gut.

Potato protein at 7.5% and pea protein at 2.5% are the plant proteins in the mix. They lift the amino acid profile and they do that job, but plant protein is not as digestible as the fish in front of it, so read the headline protein figure with that in mind.

The finishing detail is consistent with the rest: FOS from chicory root, MOS, an inactivated yeast at 0.4% and a live Bacillus culture listed as a gut flora stabiliser. Vitamin E is generous at 444 mg per kilo, the minerals are mostly oxides and sulphates with one chelated zinc entry among them, and calcium converts to 0.87% of dry matter, an easy adult level.

£7.00 a kilo, in 2kg and 10kg bags.

Feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at about 242 grams a day and £1.69, on the usual estimate of around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The label's guide spans 160 to 310 grams for dogs from 10kg to 25kg, so start in the middle of that and adjust by the ribs.