Wolf Of Wilderness Elements: Fiery Volcanoes review

All four recipes come out in our Good band, which is also the band where the typical adult dry food settles. Vast Oceans and Rough Storms edge the set, the former helped by protein at 30.4% of dry matter against a lean 13.0% fat. Rocky Canyons has the beefiest headline of them all, with transparency Outstanding and protein and processing, nutritional balance and value all at Good. More of its animal side is left unspecified than its siblings manage. Across the range carbohydrate converts to between 40.2% and 44.4% of dry matter, every one of those under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food, which is the single clearest thing this construction buys you.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh lamb meat (40%), dried lamb protein (14.8%), potato flakes, dried peas, lamb fat (4.5%), potato starch, dried beet pulp, protein hydrolysate [from yeast], potato protein, linseeds, sunflower oil, dried brewers' yeast, lignocellulose, salmon oil (0.7%), dried yeast cell walls (0.2%, beta-glucans and mannan-oligosaccharides), dried wild berries [currant pomace, aronia berry pomace] (0.2%), dried herbs [common yarrow, dandelion root, camomile, nettle leaves, ribwort, St John's wort] (0.2%), chicory inulin (0.1%).

The construction is the same story four times over, and it is a good one. Fresh meat at 40% opens each list, with the same animal in dried form immediately behind it: lamb protein at 14.8%, beef greaves at 16%, duck protein at 18%, herring protein at 16.4%. That pairing matters. Fresh meat is mostly water, the oven takes that away, and the dried entry is what actually reaches the bowl. Protein lands between 28.3% and 31.0% of dry matter across the range, which is a respectable spread for a kibble.

Potato flakes and potato starch bind all four, with peas in two of them. Potato starch is close to pure starch once it has been separated out, so its job here is holding the biscuit together. The low carbohydrate figures suggest the recipes are not leaning on it too heavily.

One quiet detail deserves credit. The protein hydrolysate in every recipe is drawn from yeast, and the label says so, which means the extra protein is not smuggling in an unnamed animal. On a range sold on single-species recipes, that is exactly the sort of specificity that makes the promise checkable.

Salmon oil is the exception to the single-animal rule, running from 0.6% in Rocky Canyons to 3.6% in Vast Oceans. It is there because marine omega 3 comes in the form dogs use directly, which plant oils do not, and it is a good reason. It does mean that none of the four will suit a dog you are keeping off fish.

The fibre comes from dried beet pulp in all four, with lignocellulose behind it in three. Lignocellulose is a purified plant fibre, a pale powder made as a by-product elsewhere in agriculture, and it bulks a bowl out while carrying almost nothing else with it. The job gets done, but this is not the same thing as fibre from a whole vegetable.

The finishing touches repeat across the range. Yeast cell walls at 0.2% handle the beta-glucans and mannan-oligosaccharides. Chicory inulin at 0.1% is the prebiotic, alongside wild berries at 0.2% and a six-herb blend at 0.2%. That last pair is the brand's signature flourish rather than its substance. The trace minerals come as sulphates with a chelated zinc at 60 mg alongside. Selenium is declared as sodium selenite at 0.35 mg. Of the two selenium forms a pet food may use, that is the commoner one.

Lamb at 40% fresh with dried lamb protein at 14.8% and lamb fat at 4.5%, the only recipe here whose named fat comes from its own headline animal. At 18.5% fat on a dry matter basis it is the richest of the four, and the one carrying the volcanic minerals the name points at, a clay mineral declared at 5000 mg. Potato protein appears here too, the only variety to use it.

Fiery Volcanoes is £4.87 a kilo and the other three recipes are £4.71 each.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats between 220 and 232 grams a day depending on the recipe. That comes to between £1.05 and £1.09, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's own chart is written for a low-activity dog and asks 235 grams at 20kg on Fiery Volcanoes, so a busier dog will want a little more than it prints.