Cobbydog Working Dog Food: Beef & Vegetables review

Our scoring settles both bags in the Average band, one step under the typical adult dry food, and the two finish level with one another. Beef meat meal at 27% is what holds them up there; wheat leading the list and carbohydrate at 53.2% of dry matter are what stop them climbing. Read against the dog it names, one that burns what it eats and comes home muddy, it is an honest and uncomplicated bowl.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, Beef Meat Meal (27.0%), Whole Peas (4.0%), Wheatfeed, Poultry Oil, Additives: Antioxidants

Beef meat meal at 27% is the backbone of this recipe. Meal goes in dry, so that figure survives the oven close to intact. It is rendered, ground protein taken from the cuts we do not eat ourselves, concentrated and reliable. The label names the species too, and that is the detail that matters most when you meet a meal entry. Protein comes out at 23.9% of dry matter.

Wheat opens the list and wheatfeed sits further down, the mill fraction left behind when flour is made, which brings fibre and bulk. Between them the grain side is doing plenty, with carbohydrate estimated at 53.2% of dry matter next to 46.2% for the typical adult dry food.

Whole peas at 4% are the only vegetable entry, and whole is the form worth having, since it keeps the fibre and the spread of nutrients that refined pea flour leaves behind.

Poultry oil supplies the fat, which finishes at 8.7% of dry matter. Poultry names a family, not a species, so the bird behind that oil could be chicken, turkey or duck. This is the one line where the label stays vague. Most dogs will never notice; for a dog you are keeping strictly off chicken, it is the entry to know about.

The mineral panel is dosed in full, with iron at 133 mg, zinc at 111 mg, manganese at 40 mg and copper at 20 mg. Iodine comes from calcium iodate at 1.63 mg, and selenium is at 0.22 mg. The selenium comes as sodium selenite, the standard industry form, used at these tiny doses precisely because so little is needed. Vitamin D3 is printed alongside them at 1,500 iu and vitamin E at 100 mg, with vitamin A dosed and declared as well.

Beef & Vegetables carries the same declared recipe as its stablemate, and whole peas at 4% are the only vegetable the ingredients list actually names. The two read the same on paper, which is worth knowing if you had expected the vegetable name to mean a noticeably different bowl.

Active Country is £2.35 a kilo and Beef & Vegetables is £2.41 a kilo, each sold in a 12kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 244 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at roughly £0.57 a day on Active Country and £0.59 on Beef & Vegetables. The label asks 145 to 250 grams for a dog that size, and a proper working day belongs at the top of that range.