Cobbydog Original review

The typical adult dry food finishes in our Good band, and this one comes to rest a step under it in Average. That feels like a fair reflection of what it is. Honest percentages on the beef, a fully printed vitamin panel and a steady analysis sit on one side; a wheat-led list, a heavy cereal load and a loosely described meat meal sit on the other. The halves balance out to a middling result, and for the plain working ration this sets out to be, middling is no insult.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, Dehydrated Beef 17%, Maize, Meat Meal containing Beef 5%, Vitamins, Minerals

Wheat takes the first slot and maize the third, so cereal frames everything else here. Wheat is the industry's workhorse grain, easy to bake into a biscuit and perfectly digestible for most dogs. It is also the grain most often implicated when a dog turns out to have a dietary intolerance. A dog already settled and itch-free on wheat has nothing new to fear from it.

The beef arrives in two forms, and the label deserves credit for putting numbers on both. Dehydrated beef at 17% is beef minus the water. Where fresh meat shrinks in the oven, all 17% of this arrives in the finished biscuit. The meat meal at 5% is the looser entry: it contains beef, in the label's own words, which is not quite the same thing as being beef.

The analysis reads lean and unhurried. Protein converts to 21.7% of dry matter and fat to 8.6%, with estimated carbohydrate at 63.3% where the typical adult dry food runs at 46.2%. That balance suits a dog whose waistline needs watching rather more than it suits a hard-working one.

The vitamin and mineral panel is dosed in print from vitamin A at 12,400 iu through zinc at 100mg and copper at 20mg, with calcium and phosphorus both stated. Salt is added at 1.0%, a palatability touch dogs appreciate that owners of dogs with heart histories tend to watch.

£2.27 a kilo, in 3kg and 12kg bags.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition gets through about 249 grams a day on the standard maintenance estimate of roughly 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which comes to £0.57 a day. The bag's own guide asks 150 to 230 grams of a 13.5kg dog, so let the waistline arbitrate between the two.