Sneyd's Wonderdog Wonderdog Elite review

Our scoring lands this in the Good band. Fish leads the recipe, the label puts a percentage against almost everything that matters, and the extras at the bottom come with milligram amounts rather than a passing mention. The potato is what keeps it from a higher band, since between whole potato, potato starch and potato protein a good deal of the bag is one plant doing three jobs. Carbohydrate finishes at 47.2% of dry matter against 46.2% typical. A typical bag of adult dry food keeps it company on that rung.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon 23% (Freshly Selected Salmon 15%, Salmon Meal 5%, Salmon Gravy 2%, Salmon Oil 1%), Freshly Prepared Trout 20%, Potato 18% Potato Starch 11%, Beet Pulp, Pea Starch, Potato Protein 6%, Sunflower Oil, Minerals, Vitamins, Brewers Yeast, Sodium Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Yucca Schidigera Extract (105 mg/kg), Marigold Meal (105 mg/kg), Rosemary Extract, Beta-Carotene (26 mg/kg).

Four entries stack up to make the 23% salmon: freshly selected salmon at 15%, salmon meal at 5%, then 2% salmon gravy and 1% salmon oil. Freshly prepared trout at 20% sits alongside them. Read properly, the meal is the entry that survives the oven most intact, while the fresh salmon and the trout lose most of their water on the way through. Protein lands at 26.4% of dry matter and fat at 15.4%, a fat level with real headroom in it, and that is where the energy in this recipe comes from.

Potato turns up in three guises on the plant side: whole potato at 18%, potato starch at 11% and potato protein at 6%. Pea starch and beet pulp sit behind them. Whole potato brings nutrients along with its starch. The starch and the protein are refined fractions, there to hold the kibble together and to lift the protein figure respectively, and a plant protein does not stand in for fish on equal terms. There is no cereal in the recipe.

Sunflower oil is the added fat here, and as plant oils go it is one of the better ones, light on saturated fat and rich in vitamin E of its own. Every vitamin is printed with its dose, and generously so: vitamin E at 655 mg and vitamin C at 85 mg. Zinc comes in two forms, a sulphate and a chelate, and a dog absorbs the chelated version more easily.

The tail of this list is unusually well documented. Yucca schidigera extract at 105 mg/kg is the label's answer to stool odour. Marigold meal at the same 105 mg/kg is a natural pigment source and beta-carotene at 26 mg/kg is an antioxidant. Rosemary extract is the natural preservative keeping the fats from turning. None of them changes the shape of the recipe, but printing the amounts at all says something about how the label was put together.

L-Carnitine at 60 mg/kg closes the additive list. The body uses that amino acid in the metabolism of fat. That is why it appears in recipes written with softening waistlines in mind. Sodium chloride and potassium chloride are the mineral salts that every complete food needs in small quantities, and brewers yeast is in for palatability and B vitamins.

£4.50 a kilo, in 2kg and 12kg bags, with a sample pack available.

On an estimate of about 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance figure), that is around 238 grams, or £1.07 a day. The label runs higher, at 190 to 280 grams for a dog between 11kg and 20kg, so watch the shape over the first fortnight and settle where your dog holds condition.