Sneyd's Wonderdog Wonderdog Adult Grain Free Lamb review

Lamb lands in our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food. A single named animal makes up half the recipe, the fresh and dried split is printed, protein is 28.3% of dry matter and carbohydrate an estimated 43.4% against the 46.2% category norm. Those all pull the same way: transparency reads Outstanding, value and protein and processing both Good, nutritional balance Average. The pea protein and the high ash figure are the two things stopping it climbing any further.

Ingredients, as declared: Lamb 50% (Freshly Prepared Lamb 30%, Dried Lamb 18%, Lamb Stock 2%), Sweet Potato 23%, Peas 9%, Potato, Pea Protein, Linseed, Beet Pulp, Omega-3 Supplement, Minerals, Mint 0.2%, Fructooligosaccharides (FOS, 96mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (MOS, 24mg/kg)

Lamb at 50% is declared as 30% freshly prepared, 18% dried and 2% stock. Fresh lamb comes out of the oven with most of its water gone. That leaves the 18% dried entry carrying the weight in the finished kibble. Lamb is a good meat for dogs, easily digested and consistently palatable, and it is still the first place most owners go when poultry has stopped working.

Top of the plant list is sweet potato at 23%, then peas at 9%, then potato. Beet pulp does the fibre, and there is no cereal at all. Carbohydrate is estimated at 43.4% of dry matter, under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food, and fat converts to 14.1%, so the balance leans meatier and richer than the average bag.

One entry here repays a careful read: pea protein. A by-product of pea processing, it is concentrated and easy to work into a recipe, and it lifts what the analysis says about protein without lifting the meat behind it. It is not a problem ingredient and plenty of good foods use a little. It does mean the protein on this label is not entirely animal in origin, worth knowing when you weigh this bag against another.

Mint at 0.2% is the label's flourish and a pleasant one on a lamb recipe. Linseed sits above it as a plant source of omega 3 and fibre, working alongside an added supplement whose source the label does not give. The prebiotic pair, FOS at 96mg/kg and MOS at 24mg/kg, is printed with doses that are honest and small.

Ash converting to 10.9% of dry matter is the highest figure in this recipe's panel, and it usually means the dried lamb brings a good deal of bone-derived mineral along with it. That is normal for a dried meat and it is not a fault. It does leave a slightly smaller share of the bowl for protein and fat than the headline meat figure alone would suggest. The vitamin and trace element panel names its entries without printing amounts.

£4.33 a kilo, in a single 15kg sack.

About 246 grams a day feeds a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), which works out at £1.07 a day. The bag's table asks 140 to 235 grams for a dog of 11kg to 20kg, so both figures land in much the same place.