Dentalife Oral Care Dental Chews Medium Dog Chicken

A dental chew is one of the very few things in a pet shop bought for a reason other than the animal enjoying it. The dog thinks it is a treat; the owner is buying a routine. That mismatch is worth holding on to, because it means the composition deserves the same reading you would give a bag of food, not the shrug you give a biscuit.

Purina's format here is a soft, spongy stick rather than a hard one, and the daily amount is one stick for a medium dog from 12kg to 25kg. The composition is cereals — 62% extruded corn flour and 5% wheat flour — with glycerol, minerals, yeasts, meat and animal derivatives, and oils and fats. Analytically it is protein 7%, fat 2.5%, crude ash 5%, crude fibre 1.2%, calcium 0.9% and moisture 14.5%.

• 15 sticks per pack
• One stick a day for a medium dog from 12kg to 25kg
• Cereals: 62% extruded corn flour and 5% wheat flour
• Chicken is 1.1% of the stick
• Protein 7%, fat 2.5%, crude ash 5%, crude fibre 1.2%, calcium 0.9%, moisture 14.5%
• Purina say to supervise the dog and to use within 7 days of opening

The word Chicken on the front is doing a lot of work. Chicken is 1.1%. The bulk of the stick is corn flour at 62% and wheat flour at 5%, and the rest of the meat content is listed only as meat and animal derivatives. Purina print all of this on the pack, so nothing is being hidden — but if you are choosing between flavours on the assumption that the flavour describes the recipe, it does not. It is also not wheat free, which rules it out for some dogs, and it is a treat, so it counts towards the day's food.

Who it's for: owners of a 12kg to 25kg dog who want a daily dental routine that will actually happen, and who would rather know what is in it than not.