Chudleys Working Crunch review

On our scale this is a Good band food, level with the typical adult dry food rather than a step behind it. The recipe gives up ground on unnamed poultry, wheat in second place and undosed extras, and claws plenty back by putting a concentrated meat meal first with an analysis matched to genuine work. Scores measure construction; a shooting season measures usefulness, and this ration was designed for the second test.

Ingredients, as declared: Poultry meal (min 26%), Whole grain wheat, Whole grain maize, Chicken fat, Hydrolysed chicken, Whole grain oats, Full fat linseed, Unmolassed beet pulp, Yeast (source of mannan oligosaccharides), Salmon oil, Seaweed, Dandelion leaves, Celery seed, Burdock root, Nettle leaves, Green lipped mussel, glucosamine, Devil's claw root, Blackcurrant, Rosemary, Pomegranate, Rosehips, Yucca schidigera, Beetroot

Poultry meal at a declared minimum of 26% leads the list, which is worth pausing on: meal is already dried, so that figure survives cooking intact, and protein lands at 26.4% of dry matter. The species is never named, with hydrolysed chicken behind it as the palatant.

Fat is the working ingredient here, declared at 15% and converting to 16.5% of dry matter, built from chicken fat with salmon oil for marine omega 3 and full fat linseed for the plant kind. That is where the crunch gets its calories.

The starch comes from wheat, maize and oats. Carbohydrate is estimated at 46.6% of dry matter, close to the 46.2% typical of adult dry food. For a cereal-based ration that is a restrained figure, a sign the meat and fat are pulling their share.

The recovery entries run to green lipped mussel, glucosamine, devil's claw, nettle, celery seed and burdock, none of them dosed. Pleasant to see, not to be mistaken for a clinical joint supplement.

Unmolassed beet pulp settles the fibre side and yeast supplies mannan oligosaccharides as a prebiotic, ahead of the fruit tail that runs from blackcurrant to beetroot.

£2.18 a kilo, in a 14kg sack with a 2.5kg bucket alongside.

Fed to the standard maintenance estimate, about 840 kcal a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition (110 × bodyweight^0.75), expect around 233 grams and about £0.51 a day. A dog in genuine work will need more than that baseline, and the label's table runs up to 580 grams at the top end. Let workload and waistline set the scoop.