Husse Light review

This one comes out in our Average band while the typical adult dry food reads Good, and the reasons all sit on the ingredients list rather than in anything worrying. The leading entry names no animal, wheat fills the next three places, and estimated carbohydrate finishes at 54.9% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical, with protein at 23.9% and fat at 9.2%. Low fat is the entire point of a light food, so being marked down for it is a little rough on the recipe. What the banding is really telling you is that the meat here is generic and the grain is doing the heavy lifting. A dog on a diet who takes wheat happily and likes the taste will get just what this bag offers.

Ingredients, as declared: dried animal proteins, wheat, wheat bran, wheat meal, maize, rice, dried peas, dried chicken, animal fat, vegetable fibres (3%), linseed (1.5%), hydrolysed animal protein, minerals, glucosamine (250 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (250 mg/kg).

The list opens with dried animal proteins, and that plural is doing a lot of work. It can cover any land animal, and it can change from batch to batch. Dried chicken appears further down as the one meat that is actually named. That is a closed door more than a red flag: you cannot tell from the bag which meat is in the bowl. It matters most if your dog has previously reacted to one particular meat.

Wheat, wheat bran and wheat meal take the next three places, with maize and rice behind them. Wheat is the workhorse of a dry dog food, easy to bake with and easy to keep in supply. It is also the grain that gets the blame most often when a dinner disagrees with a dog. The bran is the useful part here, being mostly fibre, which is exactly what a light recipe wants, since fibre fills a dog without feeding them much.

The light mechanism itself is straightforward and honest. Fat is held at 9.2% of dry matter, well under what a standard adult kibble carries, while fibre rises to 3.8% with vegetable fibres declared at 3%. There is a little more plant protein and fibre from the dried peas. Protein lands at 23.9% of dry matter, which is enough for a steady adult without being generous, so on a long diet keep an eye on muscle as well as on the waistline.

The joint pair is written into the ingredients with figures beside it, glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate at 250 mg per kilo each. Both come from cartilage and both are the standard additions to a food aimed at older or heavier dogs. Even at modest levels, having the dose printed is worth more than a promise on the packaging.

The omega 3 here is linseed at 1.5%, in the plant version that a dog has to convert. No fish oil appears at all, so the bag is genuinely fish free. The vitamin and mineral panel is dosed in full, with zinc at 65 mg, iron at 50 mg and manganese at 35 mg per kilo. The vitamin E at 130 mg and vitamin C at 90 mg are on the modest side.

£4.15 a kilo, sold as a 15kg bag and as a twin pack of two of them.

A 15kg adult in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75). That is roughly 226 grams of this recipe, and £0.94 a day. Feed a dog being slimmed to their target weight, not the weight they are now. The label's table asks 120 to 480 grams across the 10kg to 30kg range, which is a very wide door, so let the vet's scales lead.