Lovejoys Original Dry Senior / Light: Lamb & Rice review

Both varieties finish in our Good band, where the broad middle of the adult dry shelf sits too, so this is a food squarely with the crowd. The reasons read straight off the label: rice takes the first slot, and the meat comes in as a meal with the digest and the fat behind it. The estimated carbohydrate runs above the 46.2% of dry matter typical for a dry food. None of that is a failing for the dog pictured on the bag, an older or softening one whose calorie needs have dropped. It is a gentle recipe doing a gentle job.

Ingredients, as declared: Rice (43.0%), Lamb Meat Meal (21.0%), Whole Barley, Whole Linseed (4.0%), Lamb Digest, Sugar Beet Pellets, Lamb Fat, Alfalfa Pellets, Seaweed Meal (0.5%), Fructo-oligosaccharides (Prebiotic FOS), Joint Pack (Glucosamine, Chondroitin Sulphate and MSM) (0.08%), Extract of Yucca Schidigera (200 mg/kg)

Both bags open with rice, 43% of the lamb and 50% of the turkey, and whole barley backs it in one bag with whole oats in the other. Rice is an easy starch for most dogs to handle, and keeping the grains whole means they arrive with more of their own fibre and minerals intact. Gluten comes with the barley, so note that entry if you are steering a dog clear of it.

The meat comes in as a meal, lamb meat meal at 21% or turkey meat meal at 17.5%. A meal is a dried, rendered powder with its water already gone. It carries more protein by weight than fresh meat does once the kibble is baked. Even so the finished analysis is modest, with protein converting to 19.6% of dry matter for the lamb and 20.7% for the turkey.

What makes the label unusually tidy is that each bag stays with one animal all the way down. The digest that gives the kibble its flavour and the fat that carries it both name the same species as the meal above them. The lamb bag is lamb throughout and the turkey bag is turkey throughout. No fish oil appears anywhere either, useful to know if you are keeping a dog off fish.

The omega 3 side falls to whole linseed, 4% of the lamb and 2.5% of the turkey. That is the plant form. A dog's body is slower to make the skin-active forms from it than from fish, so give the coat some weeks before you judge it. Fibre is handled by sugar beet pellets and alfalfa. Seaweed meal at 0.5% brings iodine and trace minerals, and the gut bacteria get their prebiotic from fructo-oligosaccharides.

The joint entries are printed as one combined pack at 0.08%, covering glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate and MSM together. That is a modest share, not a clinical dose, so treat it as a small daily top-up on an ageing frame. The label's nod to what happens at the other end is yucca extract at 200 mg/kg.

The mineral panel is dosed in print on both bags. Zinc runs at 100 mg, iron at 60 mg, manganese at 50 mg, copper at 7.5 mg, iodine at 1.5 mg and selenium at 0.1 mg per kilo, with vitamin E at 190 mg. These are sulphate forms, not chelates, and that is the everyday choice. Plenty of labels never number these at all, and this one numbers every one.

Rice at 43% with whole barley in support, and lamb doing every animal job in the bag: lamb meat meal at 21%, lamb digest and lamb fat. Whole linseed is doubled here at 4%, the larger plant omega 3 share of the two, and the analysis declares 18.0% protein and 8.5% fat.

Lamb & Rice is £4.42 a kilo and Turkey & Rice £4.32, both sold in 2kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 262 grams a day of the lamb, working out at £1.16, or about 255 grams of the turkey at £1.10. Both rest on an energy need of roughly 840 kcal a day, the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. For a dog between 10kg and 20kg the label's own table asks 175 to 260 grams, and the waistline should settle any difference between the two.