Terra Canis Low Fat Diet: Kangaroo review

Ingredients, as declared: kangaroo 31%, broth 29%, pumpkin 8%, carrot 8%, cucumber 7%, lupin meal 4%, broccoli 3%, pineapple 3%, cellulose 1%, fennel 1%, minerals 1%*, coconut flour*, psyllium husks*, artichoke leaf*, brewer's yeast*, yarrow*, marigold*, dandelion*, psyllium seed*, chia seed*, basil*, oyster shell*, spirulina *dried

Both tins keep to one animal. The first recipe has chicken and nothing else, the second kangaroo and nothing else. Neither adds a fish oil or an unnamed animal fat, so an exclusion plan can be run off these lists without guesswork.

Neither recipe lists an added oil of any kind. What fat is in the tin comes from the meat itself. That is how the declared fat figures are held where they are, and on a diet described this way it is the whole intention.

Cellulose and lupin meal appear in both, with psyllium husks and psyllium seed behind them, so the fibre comes partly from material that passes straight through and partly from the kind that holds water. Coconut flour, artichoke leaf, brewer's yeast and chia seed are common to both lists, and each closes with oyster shell and spirulina alongside dried dandelion, marigold, yarrow, basil and fennel.

Both tins are worked out at 62 kcal per 100g. Energy that light means the bowl gets large. The printed guide asks 900 to 1300 grams a day for a dog of 10 to 20kg, which a small dog will get through more comfortably than a big one. On a restricted fat plan the daily amount is your vet's call, not the label's.

Each tin prints its own dose list, vitamin A and vitamin D3 with iodine, copper, manganese and zinc beside them, and minerals appear as an ingredient at 1% in both recipes. Neither label names a probiotic, a palatant or a preservative.

The kangaroo tin gives its meat as a single line at 31%, with no breakdown into cuts, and broth at 29%. Pumpkin and carrot are at 8% each, cucumber at 7%, lupin meal at 4%, broccoli and pineapple at 3%, with cellulose and fennel at 1%. The analysis is leaner again: protein at 9.1%, or 49.7% of dry matter, fat at 1.5%, which converts to 8.2%, and crude fibre at 1.2%, or 6.6%, against 81.7% declared moisture. The carbohydrate estimate reads 5.3% as fed and 28.9% of dry matter. Plenty of dogs have never met kangaroo either, and that counts for something where a novel protein is part of the instruction.

Both come as 400g tins, singly or in packs of six. The chicken works out at £10.45 a kilo and the kangaroo at £11.66. On the label's guide a 15kg dog eats about 1353 grams a day, which puts the chicken at roughly £14.14 a day and the kangaroo at about £15.77.