Country Dog Premium Adult 1+ Light review

This one reads in our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food, and that is a fairer result than it first looks for a diet recipe. Lower fat and higher fibre are the entire point of a light food, and both of them pull on the same measures a general nutrition reading rewards. Set it beside other light foods and the construction holds up well. The meat declaration prints its meal and fresh shares, the fat is named, the prebiotics are dosed at a level you can actually see and the joint supplements come with percentages.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 34% (Chicken Meal 24%, Freshly Prepared Chicken 10%), Maize, Barley, Rice (12%), Beet Pulp (8%), Pea Fibre, Dried Brewer's Yeast (2.5%), Chicken Gravy, Minerals, Flaxseed (0.9%), Seaweed, Chicken Fat, Prebiotic Mannan Oligosaccharide (0.5%), Prebiotic Fructo Oligosaccharide (0.5%), Yucca Extract (0.05%), Glucosamine Sulphate (0.045%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.015%), Cranberry (0.01%).

Chicken at 34% is split on the label, 24% chicken meal and 10% freshly prepared chicken. That is less meat than the brand's standard adult recipes carry, which is what a light food does. The calories have to come out somewhere, and the usual route is the fat and part of the meat. Protein still converts to 27.2% of dry matter, so the diet has not been paid for out of the dog's protein.

Maize, barley and rice at 12% carry the starch, and this is squarely a cereal recipe. Carbohydrate is estimated at 48.3% of dry matter, a little above the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. That is what happens when the fat comes down, because the other proportions have to rise to fill the gap.

Fibre is the real lever here. It is declared at 7%, more than three times what the brand's standard adult recipes carry, with beet pulp at 8% and pea fibre doing that work. Fibre fills a dog up without feeding them much, which is exactly what you want in a diet food. It is also why the first fortnight can bring bulkier stools than you are used to. Mannan oligosaccharide and fructo oligosaccharide are both dosed at 0.5%, a proper showing for prebiotics, and they help the gut settle into the change.

Everything animal in the bag is chicken: the meal, the freshly prepared meat, the gravy and the added fat. For an owner ruling meats in and out one at a time, that makes it a clean recipe. The omega 3 comes from flaxseed at 0.9%, a plant source, and there is no fish oil on the list at all. Seaweed brings iodine and trace minerals. The joint pair is printed as glucosamine sulphate at 0.045% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.015%. Both are animal-derived and the label does not trace either to a species. That is worth a thought on a strict elimination plan.

The added minerals are dosed, and zinc is the entry worth a look. It comes in at 70 mg per kilo as the sulphate, plus another 50 mg as a chelate of protein hydrolysates. The chelated form is absorbed more easily, and doubling up makes sense in a food a dog will eat a lot of. Iron sits at 30 mg, manganese at 25 mg, copper at 10 mg, iodine at 1.6 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg per kilo, with vitamin E at 245 mg. The one gap is that the hydrolysed protein carrying the zinc is not named.

Country Dog Premium Adult 1+ Light is sold in 2kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 267 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). A dog being fed to slim will be on rather less than that, so read it as the maintenance figure to work down from rather than as a target.