Seven Pet Seven Grain Free Senior/Light review

Both recipes come in at our Good band, the same placing the typical adult dry food holds, and for a light diet that is a fair result. Lower fat means fewer calories in every mouthful, and a recipe built to hold energy back is always at a disadvantage against a richer one. What earns them the band is the meat share, the printed joint pack and a label that puts a figure against almost everything it mentions.

Ingredients, as declared: Trout & Salmon 50% (including Freshly Prepared Trout 30%, Dried Salmon 11%, Freshly Prepared Salmon 4%, Salmon Oil 3%, Salmon Stock 2%), Sweet Potato (24%), Potato, Peas (6%), Beet Pulp, Pea Protein, Linseed, Potato Protein, Minerals, Asparagus (0.3%), Glucosamine (170 mg/kg), Methylsulfonylmethane (170 mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (125 mg/kg), Fructooligosaccharides (FOS, 96mg/kg), Mannanoligosaccharides (MOS, 24 mg/kg)

Both bags put 50% of the recipe into their named animal and print the split, with a fresh share of 27% to 30% and a dried share behind it. The oven takes the water out of fresh meat, which leaves the dried share doing much of the work in the finished food. Both labels are open enough to show you where it lies.

Fat is the whole point of this range. At 7.5% and 8% it sits a long way below a standard adult kibble, and that is how the calories come down without the meat coming down with them. Protein still converts to 27.7% and 29.9% of dry matter.

The trade is starch. The starch load is sweet potato, potato and peas, and carbohydrate finishes at 52.6% and 48.4% of dry matter, above the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. That is the usual arithmetic of a light diet, since something has to fill the bowl once the fat comes out. Beet pulp is in there to add the fibre that keeps a hungry dog feeling fed.

The joint pack is quantified on both labels, with glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 170 mg/kg each and chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg, a sensible pairing with the senior half of the name. FOS at 96 mg/kg and MOS at 24 mg/kg do the prebiotic work in each recipe.

L-carnitine is the other deliberate addition, at 480 mg in the trout and salmon recipe and 500 mg in the turkey. Its job is moving fat to where the body burns it, and that is why weight recipes reach for it so often. Printing the quantity says more than the claim on its own would.

Linseed appears in both as a plant omega source. The trace minerals carry printed doses too, iron at 50 mg and manganese at 35 mg per kilo on each label.

Trout and salmon make 50%. Freshly prepared trout is 30% of it, with 11% dried salmon, 4% more freshly prepared salmon, a 3% salmon oil and a 2% salmon stock. Every fish entry is named to its species. Asparagus at 0.3% is the flourish. Behind the fish come pea protein and potato protein, and with 7.5% fat and 343 kcal per 100 grams this is the lighter bag of the pair.

£5 a kilo, in 2kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat 245 to 249 grams a day, taking around 840 kcal a day as the basis (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). On that basis the cost lands between £1.22 and £1.24 a day. For a dog of 10kg to 20kg the labels ask 200 to 330 grams, though on a weight plan the waistline is the guide really worth following.