Different Dog Health+ Keep Me Trim Turkey review

Lean recipes often score poorly because the protein comes down along with the fat, and that is emphatically not what happens here. Protein converts to 52.8% of dry matter while fat stays at 17.2%, and carbohydrate only reaches 18.4%, which is the shape you want from a food meant to hold a dog's weight steady.

It sits in our Outstanding band, the same band the typical fresh food occupies, with protein and processing, nutritional balance, transparency and value all reading Outstanding. Nothing about the scoring here reads as a compromise made for the sake of the trim in the name.

Ingredients, as declared: Human-Quality British Turkey (60%), [Fresh Turkey Breast (53%), Fresh Turkey Liver (7%)], Red Cabbage (14%), Carrot (8%), Butternut Squash (6%), Apple (5%), Button Mushrooms (3%), Vitamins & Minerals, Scottish Salmon Oil (1.2%), Flat Leaf Parsley (0.7%), Brewer's Yeast (0.3%), Chia Seeds (0.3%), Kelp Seaweed (0.3%), Turmeric (0.02%)

Turkey breast at 53% is the leanest cut of one of the leaner birds. Plenty of light and senior recipes lean on it, and it digests easily too. The 7% turkey liver behind it is the counterweight, adding vitamin B12, vitamin A, copper and iron in a form dogs absorb readily, so the pot is lean without being thin.

The plants do slightly more of the work than they would in a richer recipe. Red cabbage takes 14%, carrot 8%, butternut squash 6% and apple 5%, with button mushrooms at 3%. Carbohydrate is estimated at 5.6% as fed, which converts to 18.4% of dry matter. That sits just inside the 19.3% typical of fresh food, so the plant load here is ordinary rather than heavy.

Density is the point of this recipe and the thing to plan around. Moisture is declared at 69.7% and energy at 129 kcal per 100g, below the fresh average of 140, so a dog eats more grams for the same calories. For an owner managing a waistline that is exactly the trick being pulled: the bowl still looks like a meal while the arithmetic quietly changes.

Only one fat is added, Scottish salmon oil at 1.2%, which brings the omega 3 a lean recipe would otherwise be short of. Behind it sit flat leaf parsley at 0.7% and brewer's yeast at 0.3%, the yeast there for its spread of B vitamins and its complete protein. Chia seeds and kelp seaweed take 0.3% apiece, with turmeric at 0.02%. Kelp is where the recipe's iodine comes from, which is why it is measured in fractions of a percent.

Doses are printed across the added panel. The minerals arrive as chelates, a form chosen for how well it absorbs. Vitamin A sits at 2500 IU, vitamin D3 at 400 IU and vitamin E at 50 mg. Then zinc at 18 mg, iron at 15 mg, manganese at 7.5 mg, copper at 4.5 mg and iodine at 0.025 mg. No calcium figure is printed, so that is the number to chase up with the maker if you have a large-breed puppy.

£18.40 a kilo, sold as 250 g, 600 g and 1000 g pots.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 651 grams a day of this one, taking around 840 kcal a day as the target (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at roughly £11.98 a day, and the generous gram count is simply what a lighter food looks like when it is measured out.