Country Kibble Grain Free Senior / Light review

This one comes out in our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food, with protein and processing and nutritional balance both reading Average. That is the light recipe doing exactly its job. Holding fat at 8.7% of dry matter and energy at 340 kcal per 100g leaves room that the starch takes up. A food meant to be eaten in normal-sized helpings by a dog needing fewer calories has to give something back somewhere. Everything else on the label, from the printed fish split to the dosed joint trio and the L-carnitine, reads as a recipe that knows precisely which dog it is feeding.

Ingredients, as declared: Trout & Salmon 50% (including Freshly Prepared Trout 30%, Dried Salmon 11%, Freshly Prepared Salmon 4%, Salmon Oil 3%, Salmon Stock 2% ), Sweet Potato (24%), Potato, Peas (6%), Beet Pulp, Pea Protein, Linseed, Potato Protein, Minerals, Vitamins, Vegetable Stock, Asparagus (0.3%), Glucosamine (170 mg/kg), Methylsulfonylmethane (170 mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (125 mg/ kg), FOS (96 mg/kg), MOS (24 mg/kg)

The 50% fish share is broken into five printed parts, and that transparency is unusual. Freshly prepared trout leads at 30%, with dried salmon at 11% and freshly prepared salmon at 4%, then salmon oil at 3% and salmon stock at 2%. The fresh entries are mostly water before they meet the oven, so the dried salmon and the oil carry a good deal of the finished kibble. The oil in particular is the real prize, marine omega 3 in the form a dog takes up most easily. That suits stiff joints and an older coat alike.

The list holds no other animal, so a dog kept away from chicken, beef or lamb can eat this without a single question mark. The binding comes from sweet potato at 24%, peas at 6%, potato and beet pulp, and there is no cereal anywhere.

Two ingredients are doing the light work. Fat is kept to 8%, or 8.7% of dry matter, and energy sits at 340 kcal per 100g, both below what a standard adult kibble carries. A dog on a diet still gets a full-looking bowl. L-carnitine at 480mg supports the way the body moves fat into the furnace, and it is a common addition to weight recipes for exactly that reason.

The joint trio comes with figures: glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 170 mg/kg each and chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg. Glucosamine and chondroitin are natural components of cartilage, and the measured helping here is aimed squarely at the years when a dog thinks twice about the stairs. Linseed adds plant omega 3 on top of the salmon oil, and asparagus at 0.3% is the label's flourish rather than anything structural.

Pea protein and potato protein deserve an honest word. Both are refined plant proteins, and neither does as much for a dog as the same protein from meat would, yet they sit in the middle of this list. On a lighter recipe they also serve a purpose, since protein needs to stay respectable while fat comes down, but meat protein would have been the better answer. Zinc is dosed at 65mg, a generous helping of the trace mineral an ageing coat leans on hardest.

£4.47 a kilo, sold in a 15kg bag.

As a guide, with about 840 kcal a day as the benchmark (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 247 grams a day. That comes to roughly £1.10. A dog being fed down should be portioned to the target weight rather than the current one.