Rating: 
Wellness 95 Percent line of canned dog food gets the Advisor’s top rating of five stars.
This product should not be confused with the company’s two other canned lines… Wellness Core and Wellness Canned Dog Food.
Currently, the Wellness 95 Percent product line lists five canned dog foods intended for intermittent or supplemental feeding only.
- Wellness 95 Percent Beef
- Wellness 95 Percent Lamb
- Wellness 95 Percent Turkey
- Wellness 95 Percent Salmon
- Wellness 95 Percent Chicken
Wellness 95 Percent Chicken Dog Food was selected to represent the others in the line for this review.
Wellness 95% Chicken Formula
Canned Dog Food
Estimated Dry Matter Nutrient Content
Ingredients: Chicken, Water Sufficient for Processing, Natural Flavors, Cassia Gum, Carrageenan
Fiber (estimated dry matter content) = 4.5%
Red items when present indicate controversial ingredients
The first ingredient in this dog food includes chicken. Chicken is considered “the clean combination of flesh and skin… derived from the parts or whole carcasses of chicken”.1
Chicken is naturally rich in the ten essential amino acids required by a dog to sustain life. This is a quality ingredient.
The second ingredient is water… which (of course) adds nothing but moisture to this food. Water is a routine finding in most canned dog foods.
After the natural flavor, we find cassia gum. Cassia gum is a plant extract used here as a gelling agent providing no nutritional value to this food.
The fifth ingredient is carrageenan… a thickening agent extracted from seaweed. Carrageenan has been safely used as a food additive for hundreds of years.
We find no added vitamins or minerals on the ingredients list.
Wellness 95 Percent… the Bottom Line
Judging by its ingredients alone, Wellness 95 Percent looks like an exceptional canned dog food.
But being 100% meat, the product was never intended to be fed as a complete and balanced canine diet.
Wellness 95 Percent is a supplement… and a supplement only.
Because they probably lack some essential nutrients, supplements must not be fed continuously as the sole item in a dog’s diet.
We prefer to use a dog food like this as a special treat. Or as an appetizing topper… to be mixed with a dry kibble.
The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 36%, a fat level of 27% and an estimated carbohydrate content of 28%.
As a group, the brand features an average protein content of 35% and an average fat level of 32%. Together, these figures suggest an overall carbohydrate content of 25% for the full product line.
We note the Guaranteed Analysis figures reported by the label of this 95 percent meat product are notably conservative. And this causes the numbers reported by our dashboard to understate the brand’s true protein content.
With no sign of any plant-based protein concentrates, this is the profile of a canned dog food containing an abundance of meat.
Bottom line?
Wellness 95 Percent is essentially a meat-based canned dog food using a plentiful amount of poultry, beef, lamb or salmon as its main sources of animal protein… thus earning the brand five stars.
Enthusiastically recommended… for supplemental feeding only.
Those looking for a top-quality complete and balanced canned food from the same company may wish to check out our review of Wellness Core Canned Dog Food.
A Final Word
Remember, no dog food can possibly be appropriate for every life stage, lifestyle or health condition. So, choose wisely. And when in doubt consult a veterinarian for help.
Have an opinion about this dog food brand… or maybe the review itself? Please know… we welcome your comments.
- Association of American Feed Control Officials ↩
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
How does this food contain 28% carbs? I understand the math, but it’s 95% chicken. Chicken doesn’t contain carbs, now does it? so is there a flaw in your math? or am i completely off? Shouldn’t this have no carbs at all given the exclusion of grains all together?
Hi Jonathan… There are a number of factors at play here.
1. The company reports 8% protein using the “as fed” standard known as Guaranteed Analysis. This is the minimum amount of protein Wellness is willing to guarantee to be in every can. Wellness has been very conservative in its protein guarantee. If they had reported a higher (and truer) picture of the protein contents, the carb content would have been much lower.
2. Although Wellness promises the food contains 95% meat, meat contains 70-80% water. In order to compare foods with different moisture contents, we routinely use math to remove that water.
3. The thickener carrageenan contains 72% carbohydrates (mostly fiber) and guar gum includes about 85%. So, even though it is used only as a gelling agent, its carbohydrate must be accounted for in the final analysis.
We use a simple proven process for estimating carbohydrate content of food. You can read about how we do it in our article, “How to Estimate the Hidden Carbohydrate in Any Dog Food“.
In any case, you’ve been very observant. The amount of carbs are probably much lower in this case. But in our defense, we must use the only number the company is willing to share on its label with consumers. Hope this helps.
Ahh. I gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. And thanks for telling people about good quality foods. I battle people’s misplaced trust in “major” dogfood manufacturers every day at the pet store. It’s nice to be able to jot down your website’s name as well as dogfoodanalysis.com for people so they can see for themselves. keep up the good work!