Royal Canin Mini Light Weight Care review

This lands in our Average band, a tier under the Good band where the typical adult dry food settles. Some of that is naming. No species is printed against the poultry, and none against the animal fats or the hydrolysed animal proteins either. Some of it is how the fibre is built, with cellulose powder standing in for fibre that could have come from food. The analysis, though, is genuinely pointed at the job: protein converts to 32.6% of dry matter, fat to only 12.0%, and estimated carbohydrate to 40.7% against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. For a small dog who needs to eat less without feeling short changed, those are the right numbers to be reading.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated poultry protein, maize, vegetable fibres, barley, rice, vegetable protein isolate*, maize gluten, hydrolysed animal proteins, animal fats, beet pulp, maize flour, cellulose powder, fish oil, psyllium husks and seeds, yeasts and parts thereof, minerals, soya oil, fatty acid salt, fructo-oligo-saccharides, borage oil, hydrolysed crustaceans (source of glucosamine), marigold extract (source of lutein), hydrolysed cartilage (source of chondroitin).

The list opens with dehydrated poultry protein. Its water is already gone, and it stays a substantial part of the finished kibble. Protein finishes at 30% as fed, which is high for a light food and exactly what you want when calories come down, since muscle is the last thing you want a dieting dog to lose.

Fibre is the engine of this recipe. Vegetable fibres, beet pulp, cellulose powder and psyllium husks between them push crude fibre to 8.6%, a lot for a dry food. That is what lets a smaller, lower calorie portion still fill a stomach. Cellulose deserves a plain word: it is close to pure indigestible fibre, useful for bulk and for very little else, and it is a common sight in light diets for that reason. Psyllium is the more useful of the group, a soluble fibre that suits a settled gut.

L-carnitine at 200 mg per kilo is the supplement with a figure printed against it. That is an amino acid, and it helps shift fat into the cells that use it as fuel. On a weight recipe it is there to hold muscle while fat comes off.

Joint support arrives at the end of the list, glucosamine from hydrolysed crustaceans and chondroitin from hydrolysed cartilage. Both are the usual forms and both make sense on a food for a dog carrying extra weight. Neither is given a quantity, so read them as present rather than measured.

The rest of the small print mixes the useful with the modest. Fish oil and borage oil cover the omega side, borage supplying gamma linolenic acid, and marigold extract adds lutein. Mid list there is a fatty acid salt, in the recipe as a processing aid. On the mineral side zinc is dosed at 134 mg and iron at 35 mg per kilo. What no part of the list ever does is name an animal, which is this recipe's soft spot for anyone chasing a food sensitivity.

£7.12 a kilo, in bags of 3kg and 8kg.

Using our standard basis, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 249 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £1.77 a day. A small dog on a weight plan eats a fraction of that, and a target weight agreed with your vet should set the portion.