JosiDog Adult Sensitive review

This lands in our Good band once everything is weighed together, and it is a crowded band with the typical adult dry food in it too, so the food is squarely mainstream. The construction suits the job the name claims: a dried meat entry first, rice chosen ahead of maize, a modest fat level and chicory root for the gut bacteria. The ceiling comes from what is left unsaid. The bird is never identified, no ingredient carries a percentage, and the starch load runs a little above the category norm.

Ingredients, as declared: dried poultry protein; rice; whole grain maize; poultry fat; beet fibre; hydrolysed poultry protein; minerals; ground chicory root (natural source of inulin)

The case for this food is largely what has been left out of it. Eight entries, no fish, no shellfish, no parade of botanicals and no second animal family, which leaves very little for a sensitive gut to take exception to. Recipes written for delicate digestions often go the other way and pile the extras on, so there is something to be said for the restraint here.

Dried poultry protein takes the first slot and arrives already concentrated, so none of its weight leaves in the oven. Rice comes next, ahead of the whole grain maize, and that order matters for the audience this food names. Rice is about as gentle a starch as a kibble can be built on, with none of the gluten questions that follow wheat around.

Protein converts to 27.2% of dry matter and fat to 14.1%, a deliberately light hand with the oil that suits a dog prone to a rebellious stomach. Energy comes out at 370 kcal per 100 grams. Carbohydrate estimates at 49.5% of dry matter, a little above the 46.2% typical for the category. Dial the fat down and the starch tends to rise.

Two entries carry the digestive load. Beet fibre gives the large intestine something to ferment. Ground chicory root adds inulin, the soluble fibre that the useful gut bacteria live on. Hydrolysed poultry protein sits near the bottom as a palatant, its protein broken into small savoury fragments to keep a picky eater interested. Calcium comes out at 1.63% of dry matter, and zinc is printed at 160 mg per kilo as a glycine chelate, with the rest of the mineral pack carrying doses too.

The limitation is that word poultry, which stands for a family rather than a bird. If your dog simply does better on plain food, that makes no practical difference. A formal elimination trial needs the bird pinned down by name, and that is what this label withholds.

£2.28 a kilo. Sold in 900g bags, in multipacks and in a 15kg sack.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 227 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at roughly £0.52 a day. The label's own chart asks 145 grams at 10kg and 240 grams at 20kg, so let your dog's shape settle any disagreement between the two.