Ava Breed Health Cocker Spaniel Dry review

Our Good band is where this food comes to rest, level with the typical adult dry food rather than ahead of it. Transparency reads Outstanding, protein and processing and value both read Good, and nutritional balance reads Average. The placing is the sum of sensible but unremarkable trades: a solid chicken share and a full additive panel on one side, a grain-and-cellulose base with modest fat on the other. That trade is the whole point of the recipe for a dog that finds weight far too easily.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 41.7% (Chicken Meal (20.8%), Chicken (18.8%)), Brown Rice (18.8%), Maize (11.0%), Flaked Oats (8.5%), Beet Pulp (6.8%), Cellulose (3.8%), Brewers Yeast, Chicken Gravy (2.1%), Egg, Chicken Fat (1.7%), Salmon Oil, Minerals, Chicory Root Extract (a source of prebiotic Fructooligosaccharides (0.2%)), Yeasts (as a source of Beta-glucans and Prebiotic Mannanoligosaccharide) (0.14%), Mint (0.044%), Yucca Extract (0.025%), Cranberry Extract (0.018%), Glucosamine (0.017%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.013%), Pomegranate Extract (0.009%), Green Tea Extract (0.009%)

Chicken accounts for 41.7% of the recipe, split as chicken meal at 20.8% and fresh chicken at 18.8% with gravy at 2.1% behind them. Chicken fat is held to just 1.7%. That keeps total fat down at 12.0% and the calorie density low for a kibble. Protein still converts to a respectable 27.2% of dry matter.

Brown rice at 18.8%, maize at 11.0% and flaked oats at 8.5% supply the grains, with the carbohydrate estimate finishing at 43.0% of dry matter, a shade under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. Beet pulp at 6.8% adds gentle fermentable fibre.

Cellulose at 3.8% deserves an honest word. It is purified plant fibre, essentially indigestible, and its job here is to bulk the bowl and satisfy a hungry spaniel on fewer calories. That makes crude fibre read high at 7.6% of dry matter. It divides opinion as an ingredient, but in a recipe openly built for weight-prone dogs it is doing exactly what it was chosen to do.

The additive deck is a generous one: taurine at 1000 mg, L-carnitine at 300 mg, and mint at 0.044% as a small nod to fresher breath. The chelated mineral panel is dosed line by line, with zinc at 100 mg at the top of it, and prebiotic FOS at 0.2% and MOS at 0.14% look after the gut.

The 3kg bag prices the food at £5.90 a kilo.

A 15kg adult in moderate condition gets through roughly 256 grams a day, about £1.51, using the conventional maintenance figure of roughly 840 kcal daily (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The bag itself suggests 205 to 230 grams for a 14kg to 16kg dog, and on a recipe built for waistline watching the lower figure is the sensible starting point.