Pets Love Fresh Freeze Dried Complete: Chicken, Sweet Potato, Peas and Apple review

Both recipes sit in our Good band and finish level with each other. Nutritional balance and transparency both read Outstanding on each, which is what one named meat at 80%, three named plants and a supplement pack whose contents are spelled out will usually earn. Freeze dried food keeps strong company, with the typical freeze dried recipe landing in our Outstanding band, so a Good reading here is earned in a category where the standard is already high.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 80%, Sweet Potato 10%, Peas 4%, Apple 4%, Vitamin & Mineral Pack 3% (incl. Glucosamine, Chondroitin, Green Tea, Yucca, Seaweed, Chicory Root, Dried Dandelion Root, Dried Hawthorn Leaf)

Freeze drying pulls the water out at low temperature, with no heat involved. That is why the moisture figures here are so low: 2.6% on the beef, 1.8% on the chicken. What is left is meat with its structure intact and its flavour concentrated. The practical consequence is energy in a very small space: the beef runs to an estimated 537 kcal in each 100g and the chicken to 393. Portions look almost comically small next to a wet bowl, and that is the format working as intended.

Sweet potato at 10% is the starch, peas at 4% the legume and apple at 4% the fruit. All three are named outright. Whole peas in a modest share bring fibre and a little plant protein, with antioxidants alongside. At 4% they season the recipe, and that is the difference between a pea used well and a pea used as filler.

The 3% vitamin and mineral pack is unusually chatty about its contents. Glucosamine and chondroitin go in for the joints, followed by green tea, yucca, seaweed, chicory root, dried dandelion root and dried hawthorn leaf. Chicory root is the prebiotic and seaweed the traditional trace mineral and iodine source. None of it is dosed, though, so you get the names without the figures behind them.

The two analyses are worth reading side by side, because recipes built to the same shape have come out very differently. The beef declares fat at 47.2% of dry matter against protein at 32.9%, while the chicken almost reverses that with protein at 50.9% and fat at 21.4%. Ash is higher on the chicken too, 14.3% of dry matter against the beef's 7.6%, and more ash usually means more bone went in. Both energy figures are estimates rather than declared numbers, so lean on them lightly and let condition do the fine tuning.

Single animal feeding is the quiet strength of the pair. Neither recipe carries fish oil, a second meat or an unnamed fat, so a beef bowl really is beef and a chicken bowl really is chicken, which is exactly what an elimination trial needs. The one open question is the joint pair's origin, since glucosamine is usually made from shellfish shells, and that is worth a message to the maker if shellfish is on your avoid list.

Chicken at 80% on the same plant base, and the leaner half of the pair, protein reaching 50.9% of dry matter with fat at 21.4% and an estimated 393 kcal per 100g. Portions run noticeably larger as a result. Ash is declared at 14.3% of dry matter, well above the beef, which generally means more bone came along with the meat.

Both recipes come in a 150g bag holding 80 pieces.

The target for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition is roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is about 156 grams a day on the beef, or 214 grams on the chicken. The difference between those two figures follows the energy in each recipe and nothing else.