Natural Dog Food Company Senior/Light review

This recipe comes out in our Good band, level with the typical bag of adult dry food, so it sits comfortably in the company it keeps. The declared poultry share and the printed fresh and dried split earn most of it. Carbohydrate at 50.5% of dry matter and fat at 12.1% on the same basis are what hold it in place. Both are partly the point, since a lighter diet pulls the fat back and the starch fills the space it leaves.

Ingredients, as declared: 44% Chicken & Turkey (includes 25% Freshly Prepared Chicken, 16% Dried Turkey, 2% Chicken Fat & 1% Chicken Gravy), Brown Rice, Oats, Fruits*, Vegetables*, Herbs*, Sugar Beet, Linseed, Brewers Yeast. *9% combined inclusion.

The poultry declaration is broken out on the bag as 25% freshly prepared chicken, 16% dried turkey, 2% chicken fat and 1% chicken gravy inside the 44% headline. Of the two birds, turkey is the leaner, and here it is the dried entry. Drying is what lets an entry come through cooking with its weight intact. So the finished protein of 23.0% as fed leans more on turkey than the front of the pack lets on.

Brown rice and oats carry the starch, with sugar beet supplying fibre at 5.0% crude. Carbohydrate finishes at 50.5% of dry matter, which is roughly where a lighter recipe ends up once the fat has been pulled back and something has to take its place.

Fat at 11.0% is what makes this a light diet. Energy works out at around 335 kcal per 100g, an estimate rather than a declared figure since the bag prints none, and that sits below the 357 kcal a typical adult dry food carries. For a dog whose weight has crept up, a lower energy density means the bowl can still look like dinner.

Linseed supplies the omega 3s and brewers yeast rounds off the list, while the fruits, vegetables and herbs stay under a single 9% umbrella with no names attached. That is the one spot where the label asks for trust instead of showing its working.

There is no added vitamin and mineral premix here, and that is deliberate. The brand's stated position is that its Original recipes get complete nutrition out of the ingredients alone, without a supplement blend. That makes for an unusually short list, and it does mean there are no mineral figures printed to check against.

Bags come in 2kg, 6kg and 12kg, at £6.25 a kilo.

As a rough guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 251 grams a day, which comes to £1.57, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The bag's own table asks 201 grams for a dog between 10kg and 20kg, and a dog being kept light will settle nearer the lower end of that.