Wolf Of Wilderness Soft Adult: Blue River review

All six recipes here sit in our Good band, so the range holds together closely. The pillars tell the same story: nutritional balance reads Good on every one, transparency Outstanding or Excellent throughout and value Good on all six. Protein and processing reads Good on the Blue River, the Gnarled Oaks and the Silvery Lakes, and Average on the other three. A properly named fresh meat lead and a fully itemised additive panel lift the stronger recipes. The unnamed poultry entries and the amount of potato and beet pulp behind the meat hold the range where it is. None of that stops a dog thriving on it.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh salmon (21%), fresh chicken meat (20%), sweet potato [dried] (19%), salmon meal (10%), poultry protein [dried] (10%), potato starch, dried beet pulp [desugared], linseed, protein hydrolysate [poultry], brewers' yeast [dried], egg [dried], wild berries [dried] (0.8%, lingonberries, blueberries, elderberries, black & red currants), herbs dried, yeast extract (0.15% mannan oligosaccharides, 0.09% beta-glucans), chicory [dried] [a source of inulin], fish oil, sunflower oil.

Semi-moist sits between the can and the bag, and 18% moisture is what makes the difference: water enough to keep a piece soft and fragrant, not so much that it needs a fridge. Every recipe here declares the same figure, so the texture stays consistent whichever bag you reach for.

Two shapes of recipe run through the six. The Blue River, Green Fields and High Valley open with a fresh headline meat at 21%, with fresh chicken at 20% immediately behind it. The Gnarled Oaks, Silvery Lakes and Wide Acres lead with fresh chicken itself at 41%. A dried poultry protein follows in both shapes, its water taken out so it gives more than its percentage suggests. The label does not say which bird it came from.

A poultry protein hydrolysate appears on every label. Hydrolysing chops protein into fragments. Those fragments are easier to digest and less likely to set off an oversensitive gut, and that is why recipes for sensitive dogs use them. On a strict elimination plan, the entry still counts as poultry. Take the two entries together and these labels are poultry, carrying whichever animal the front of the bag names.

The carbohydrate base is potato, sweet potato or potato meal depending on the recipe, with dried beet pulp or peas alongside it. That puts the estimated carbohydrate between 37.4% and 40.0% of dry matter across the six, while protein sits at 31.7% to 32.9% and fat at 15.2% to 20.1%. It is a steady, middle of the road analysis, and a soft piece that still has to hold its shape needs some starch to do it.

Several oils do the fat work here. Poultry fat is on most labels and fish oil or salmon oil on all of them, with sunflower and safflower bringing linoleic acid. Linseed appears on the Blue River, the Gnarled Oaks and the Silvery Lakes as a plant source of omega 3.

The last few lines are the same thoughtful set on every bag. Dried berries at 0.3% or 0.8% bring lingonberry and blueberry with elderberry alongside. A nine plant herb blend at 0.2% runs from nettle to gentian root. The yeast extract is broken out into 0.15% mannan oligosaccharides and its beta glucans, and both feed gut bacteria, not the dog directly. Chicory follows as a source of inulin, and the vitamins and trace minerals behind them are dosed one by one instead of being summarised.

Fresh salmon at 21% and fresh chicken at 20%, with salmon meal at 10% adding concentrated fish behind them. Real fish appears in this recipe alone, and it is more than an oil. Potato starch and dried beet pulp sit alongside the sweet potato. Listed for adults and seniors, and at 329.4 kcal per 100g it is the least energy dense of the six, so portions run largest here.

The Blue River, Green Fields, High Valley and Wide Acres are £4.71 a kilo, with the Gnarled Oaks and Silvery Lakes at £5.58.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats roughly 234 to 255 grams a day depending on the recipe, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at between £1.10 and £1.35 a day.