For All Dog Kind Colloidal Silver Skin Serum

A dog will find a way to lick anything it can reach, and a graze it can reach is a graze that keeps being reopened. Most of what happens to a dog's skin is small — a scrape off a wall, a nick from a bramble, a patch that has been nibbled at once too often — and the useful thing to have in the cupboard is something for exactly that size of problem.

This is built around colloidal silver, with a largely botanical supporting cast: aloe barbadensis leaf juice, chamomilla recutita, achillea millefolium, melaleuca alternifolia and vitamin E, alongside amorphophallus konjac root, in a base of water and vegetable glycerine, with salicylic acid, benzyl alcohol and sorbic acid as preservatives. For All Dog Kind describe it as a fast-acting antibacterial and antifungal serum for cleaning and soothing minor cuts and irritations, and list it as lick safe. Their direction is to clean the affected area thoroughly with warm water, dry it carefully, then apply the serum generously. It is made in the UK and comes in a 100ML bottle.

• 100ML bottle, made in the UK
• Built around colloidal silver
• Konjac root, aloe, vitamin E, yarrow, German chamomile and tea tree among the ingredients
• Also contains salicylic acid, benzyl alcohol and sorbic acid
• Described as antibacterial, antifungal and lick safe
• Store cool, dry and out of sunlight; do not refrigerate

A limit worth respecting. Minor is the operative word in the maker's own description. Anything that gapes, keeps bleeding, is hot or swollen, has something in it, or sits on a paw pad or near an eye is a vet job, and a serum is neither a substitute for that visit nor for what gets prescribed at it. There is no strength given for the colloidal silver, no application frequency, no maximum number of days and no guidance for cats — this is listed for dogs. It also contains tea tree, which is worth knowing before you put it somewhere a dog will lick, even though the maker lists it as lick safe.

Who it's for: owners who want something in the first-aid box for the scrapes and itches a dog collects on a walk, and who take it for what it is — a tidy-up for small things, not a treatment for big ones.