Pero SBT High Meat review

This lands in our Good band alongside the typical adult dry food, though most of the shelf arrives at that band by another route. The difference is mostly at the front of the list: chicken at 40% with half of it fresh, and a mineral panel dosed in print. The supplement tail is quantified too, instead of implied by a claim on the bag. Protein converts to 28.3% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 47.3%, close to the typical 46.2% on the adult dry shelf. The meat share is not being propped up by a thin biscuit. Using poultry meal for half the chicken figure is the main thing keeping it from climbing further.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 40% (Fresh Chicken 20%, Poultry Meal 20%), Maize, Oats, Beet Pulp, Linseed, Brewers Yeast, Poultry Oil, Chicken Gravy, Whole Egg Powder, Minerals, Fish Oil, Glucosamine 150 mg/kg, Chondroitin 150 mg/kg, MSM 150 mg/kg, L Carnitine 600 mg

Chicken at 40% is split down the middle, 20% fresh chicken and 20% poultry meal, and that split rewards a careful read. Fresh chicken is mostly water, and the cooking drives it off. The meal is what actually carries the protein through into the finished kibble. Meal is a perfectly good ingredient for the job. The word poultry, though, stretches to turkey, duck and goose as well as chicken, so only half of that front-of-bag chicken is pinned down.

Maize and oats do the starch work. Cooked oats digest easily and they bring fibre, manganese, magnesium and B vitamins to the bowl. Maize is the plainer of the two. Firm stools are what the fermentable fibre in beet pulp is there for. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 47.3% of dry matter, close to the middle of the adult dry category and not above it.

The extras are where this label puts its effort. Glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM each appear at 150 mg per kilo. The front of the bag could have simply named them, but the label gives the doses. L-carnitine at 600 mg is the amino acid used to help a dog turn fat into energy and hold lean condition. Marine omega 3s come from the fish oil, and the plant form comes from linseed behind it.

Whole egg powder and brewers yeast are the two quiet additions. Egg gives a dog protein about as complete as protein gets. Brewers yeast carries the B vitamins about as well as anything natural does. Neither is present in quantity, but both earn their line on the list.

Sulphates carry the trace minerals, every one of them printed: zinc at 278 mg, iron at 137 mg, manganese at 94 mg and copper at 28 mg per kilo. Selenium comes as sodium selenite at 0.57 mg. Calcium converts to 1.72% of dry matter, comfortable for a grown dog. The label names adults, not puppies still building bone.

£4.21 a kilo. There is a trial pack, plus 2kg and 12kg bags.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, and taking about 840 kcal a day as the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), that comes to roughly 243 grams and £1.02 a day. A dog of 10kg to 20kg is given a wide window on the bag, 150 to 310 grams, which leaves the final call to the waistline.