Seven Pet Seven Grain Free Adult Small Breed: Chicken, Sweet Potato & Herbs review

The salmon finishes in our Excellent band with the chicken and the lamb in Good, level with the typical adult dry food, so whichever animal you pick you are buying a carefully built bag. The salmon leads the group, the chicken sits just behind it and the lamb comes in third. Nutritional balance reads Good for the chicken and Average for the salmon and the lamb. The gaps are small enough that your dog's own preference is the better tiebreaker.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 55% (including Freshly Prepared Chicken 27%, Dehydrated Chicken 26% & Chicken Digest 2%), Vegetables (including Sweet Potato(26%), Peas (7%),Potato), Digestive Care Pack (Beet Fibre, Fructooligosaccharides (96 mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (24 mg/kg)), Flaxseed, Fish Oil, Minerals, Herbs (0.3% including Marjoram, Basil, Oregano, Sage, Thyme, Parsley).

Chicken leads at 55%, with the salmon at 53% and the lamb at 50%. Each label prints its split, and the dried share is the number worth watching. Freshly prepared meat carries a lot of water that the oven takes away. The chicken recipe stands out there with 26% dehydrated chicken, the biggest dried share of the three.

Depending on the recipe, sweet potato sits between 22% and 26%, peas between 7% and 9%, with potato behind them. No grain features anywhere. Carbohydrate lands between 40.2% and 43.4% of dry matter, comfortably under the 46.2% a typical adult dry food carries.

The same Digestive Care Pack goes into every bag: beet fibre with FOS at 96 mg/kg and MOS at 24 mg/kg. These are prebiotic fibres, food for the bacteria a dog already has rather than new bacteria going in, and a sensible inclusion in a small dog's bowl where an upset shows itself quickly.

Flaxseed and fish oil handle the omega 3s in all three, with the salmon recipe adding 4% salmon oil of its own. Marine oils go to work in a dog most directly, and that is why they turn up even in the chicken and the lamb.

Each trace mineral comes with a dose printed: zinc and iron at 50 mg, manganese at 35 mg and iodine at 1 mg per kilo. Copper and selenium appear on some of the three labels and not others. Calcium runs from 1.74% to 2.17% of dry matter, a comfortable adult level for a small dog.

Chicken at 55%, the largest meat share of the three, and unusually the 26% dried share nearly matches the 27% fresh, which puts more finished protein into the kibble than these splits normally manage. A 0.3% herb blend comes with it, along with the highest energy of the three at 379 kcal per 100 grams.

£7.47 a kilo, sold in 2kg bags.

On the usual basis, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat 222 to 235 grams a day depending on the recipe. That takes about 840 kcal a day as the starting point (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), and lands between £1.66 and £1.75 a day. Most dogs on this food are a good deal lighter than 15kg, and the labels stop at 13kg, asking 180 to 220 grams for a dog of 10kg to 13kg.