Cobbydog Supreme review

Our scoring leaves this a step short of the Good band that the typical adult dry food occupies, which puts it in our Average band. The arithmetic is easy to follow. Two cereals lead the list, the beef entries add up to a little over a fifth of the recipe, and carbohydrate finishes well above what a typical adult dry food carries. What the band does not capture is how completely this label prints its doses, which is a piece of openness that plenty of fancier bags skip.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, Dehydrated Beef 16%, Flaked Maize, Meat Meal containing Beef 5%, Vitamins, Minerals

Dehydrated beef at 16% is the lead animal entry, and being dry already it carries into the finished biscuit close to as printed. The meat meal behind it at 5% names the beef inside, and that is the more honest way to write that line. Together the animal side comes to a little over a fifth of the recipe, and protein converts to 21.7% of dry matter.

Wheat leads and flaked maize follows, and between them they give the biscuit its shape and most of its energy. Wheat is the grain owners ask about most, since it sits behind a fair number of the cereal intolerances seen in dogs. A dog with years of happy biscuit eating behind it is unlikely to be one of those. Carbohydrate at 63.3% of dry matter, against 46.2% for a typical adult dry food, is the clearest figure on the page.

No oil or fat is declared separately on the ingredients list, so what fat there is arrives inside the beef and the cereals, finishing at 8.6% of dry matter. Energy still comes to 351 kcal per 100g, near the 357 typical for adult dry food, because starch is doing the carrying that fat usually does.

The additive panel is the most generous part of this label. Vitamin A at 12,400 iu and vitamin E at 50 iu are printed, along with vitamin D3, a full run of B vitamins, vitamin C at 50 mg and vitamin K at 2 mg. Zinc is dosed at 100 mg, manganese at 80 mg, copper at 20 mg and iron at 30 mg. Calcium and phosphorus are printed at 1.5% and 1.0%, a comfortable pairing for an adult dog.

Salt is printed at 1.0%, which is unusual to see spelled out and very much in the character of an older recipe, where a little sodium sharpens the taste and keeps a plain biscuit interesting. Most healthy dogs handle that without a thought. It matters only where your vet has already flagged sodium.

£2.02 a kilo, in 3kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at roughly 239 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That is about £0.48 a day. The bag asks 150 to 230 grams for a 13.5kg dog, so weigh the portion rather than trusting the scoop and let condition settle the rest.