Sneyd's Wonderdog Wonderdog Premium Hypoallergenic Chicken & Rice review

This one lands in our Average band, and the gap is largely a naming problem. Poultry meal is a family term with no species behind it, a real limitation on a food sold as hypoallergenic. The grain side runs to rice, maize and oats together, so protein and processing comes back Poor and nutritional balance only a step better in Average. Transparency reads Outstanding, helped by a fully dosed mineral panel and percentages against the entries that matter, with value at Average alongside the overall. Carbohydrate is estimated at 48.3% of dry matter against 46.2% typical, calculated from a declared 9% moisture. The Good band is where a typical adult dry food sits. For a settled dog with nothing in particular to avoid, none of that changes what turns up in the bowl each morning.

Ingredients, as declared: Poultry Meal (26%), White Rice (26%), Whole Maize, Poultry Oil, Whole Oats, Sugar Beet, Brewers Yeast, Whole Linseed, Fish Meal, Mixed Herbs (0.5%), Fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), Mannan- oligosaccharides (MOS), Joint Care (Glucosamine, Chondroitin & MSM) (0.08%), Extract of Yucca Schidigera.

Poultry meal at 26% is the lead ingredient and the recipe's biggest question. Meal is a concentrated form, dried down before it reaches the mixer, so a quarter of the bag being poultry meal makes for a genuinely meaty kibble by dry weight. What the word will not do is name a bird. Poultry could be chicken here, or turkey, or duck, or goose, and a label that declines to commit to one of them cannot support the exclusion work its own name implies.

White rice at 26% is a gentle, easily digested grain and a sensible partner for the meat. Whole maize and whole oats follow it. Oats bring fibre along with manganese, selenium and B vitamins, while maize is the entry a sensitive dog is most likely to have met before. Three grains in one recipe is a good deal more grain than a dog on a restricted diet usually wants.

Fish meal and whole linseed carry the omega side between them, and they do it well. Fish meal is a concentrated source of marine omega 3s and amino acids. Linseed adds the plant form of omega 3, and a good amount of fibre with it. The catch is simply that fish is present at all, since plenty of owners reach for a chicken and rice food precisely to keep fish out of the bowl.

The joint care entry is declared as glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM together at 0.08%, so all three share a single number and none carries its own. That is more than many labels give and less than a full dose statement. FOS and MOS sit alongside, two prebiotics whose job is the bacterial population of the large intestine. Yucca schidigera extract is the traditional answer to stool odour, and brewers yeast is in for palatability.

The trace element panel is fully dosed. Zinc is at 100 mg/kg, iron at 60 mg/kg, manganese at 50 mg/kg, copper at 7.50 mg/kg, iodine at 1.50 mg/kg and selenium at 0.10 mg/kg. Natural antioxidants come in at 200 mg/kg, a preservative choice worth noticing. Mixed herbs at 0.5% is the one entry with nothing behind it, and at that level it is seasoning.

£2.67 a kilo. The bags are 2.5kg and 15kg, and a sample pack is there for a trial run.

About 247 grams a day covers a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, working from an estimate of roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance figure). The day rate comes to £0.66. The label asks 142 to 227 grams for a dog of 11kg to 20kg. Pick a starting point inside that range and let your dog's condition take it from there.