Barley is a four-year-old Labrador mix with a sensitive stomach and very strong opinions about food. The sensitive stomach has been a feature of his life since he was a puppy — not severe enough to require a prescription diet, but persistent enough that the wrong food makes him uncomfortable and makes our mornings considerably more complicated than they need to be.
We've tried a lot of foods over four years. Some worked for a while and then stopped. Some never worked at all. Some worked fine but had ingredient lists that made me uncomfortable — cereals and fillers and things I couldn't identify, in a food that was supposed to be good for him. The search for something that was both genuinely good quality and genuinely agreed with Barley's stomach was longer than it should have been.
The Encore Natural Wet Dog Food Grain Free Meat Selection is what finally worked. We've been using it for five months and Barley's stomach has been consistently settled for all of them, which is the longest run of digestive peace we've had since he was a puppy.
The Problem We Were Trying to Solve
Barley's sensitive stomach manifests as intermittent digestive upset — not constant, but unpredictable, and always worse when his food changes or when the quality of what he's eating drops. We'd learned over four years that the foods most likely to cause problems were the ones with high cereal content, with multiple protein sources he wasn't used to, or with ingredient lists that were long and opaque.
What we needed was a food with a short, clean ingredient list, a single primary protein source, no grains, and a high enough meat content that it was actually nutritious rather than just filling. The Encore range met all of these criteria in a way that nothing else we'd tried had managed simultaneously.
Why Encore Specifically
The Encore Natural Wet Dog Food multipack contains 20 x 156g tins across three varieties: 8 tins of Chicken Breast, 8 tins of Chicken Breast with Beef, and 4 tins of Chicken Breast with Lamb. The variety within the pack means Barley gets some rotation without the digestive disruption of switching between completely different protein sources — chicken is the base of all three, which keeps things consistent while providing enough variety to keep him interested.
The up to 50% real meat content is the key nutritional detail. This is not a food that's mostly cereal with some meat flavouring. It's a food where meat is the primary ingredient, which is what dogs are designed to eat and what Barley's stomach handles best. The grain-free recipe removes the cereal content that had been causing problems with previous foods.
The tins are recyclable, which matters to me. I'd been buying wet food in pouches that weren't recyclable and feeling vaguely guilty about the waste. The Encore tins go in the recycling without any additional steps, which is a small but genuine improvement.
The Transition
We transitioned Barley onto Encore gradually over about ten days — mixing increasing proportions of the new food with his existing food to avoid the digestive disruption that a sudden switch can cause. By day ten he was on Encore exclusively, and by day fourteen his stomach had settled in a way that was immediately noticeable.
The mornings got easier. The unpredictable digestive episodes stopped. Barley's energy levels improved, which I hadn't expected but which his vet confirmed was consistent with better nutrition. He also, for the first time in his life, consistently finishes his bowl without leaving anything, which is either a sign that he genuinely likes the food or a sign that Labradors will eat anything. Probably both.
Five Months On
We've been through several multipacks now. The consistency of the product is one of the things I appreciate most — each tin is the same quality as the last, which matters when you're managing a sensitive stomach. There's no variation that triggers a bad day.
We mix the wet food with a small amount of dry kibble, which the Encore works well with — the gravy from the tins coats the kibble and makes the whole meal more appealing, which is useful on the days when Barley is being particular about his food, which is most days, because he's a Labrador and Labradors are always particular about their food while simultaneously eating things they find on the pavement.
What Barley Thinks
Barley thinks it's excellent. He communicates this by sitting next to his bowl approximately forty-five minutes before feeding time and staring at me with the focused intensity of a dog who has decided that eye contact will make dinner happen faster. It doesn't. But I appreciate the commitment.
My Verdict
If you have a dog with a sensitive stomach, or if you've been looking for a wet food with a genuinely clean ingredient list and a high meat content, the Encore Natural Wet Dog Food Grain Free Meat Selection is worth trying. Find it in our Dog Food collection and our wider Dog Supplies collection. Barley recommends it. He's sitting next to his bowl right now, just in case.
— Dan Whitmore
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