Country Dog Premium Adult 7+ review

Our scoring lands this level with the typical adult dry food, both of them in our Good band. Protein and processing and nutritional balance both come back Average while transparency reads Outstanding. The label explains why: chicken supplies 30% of the mix, three cereals share the starch between them, and carbohydrate finishes a little above normal for a dry food. For an unfussy everyday bowl written with older dogs in mind, that is a fair result.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 30% (Chicken Meal 20%, Freshly Prepared Chicken 10%), Rice (30%), Maize, Barley, Chicken Fat, Brewers Yeast, Flaxseed (3%), Dried Maize Protein (2.5%), Chicken Gravy, Minerals, Prebiotic Mannan Oligosaccharide (0.05%), Yucca Extract (0.05%), Glucosamine (0.04%), Chondroitin (0.014%), Cranberry (0.01%).

Chicken at 30% comes printed in two parts, 20% chicken meal and 10% freshly prepared chicken, and that split is the useful bit. Most of the weight in freshly prepared meat is water, and the oven drives it off. That leaves the dried meal carrying the protein into the finished kibble, and here the meal is the larger half. Protein finishes at 23%, or 25.3% once the moisture is taken out of the sum.

Rice matches the chicken for headline share at 30%, with maize and barley following. All three are cooked cereals that most dogs handle comfortably. Barley in particular brings fibre along with its starch. Barley also carries gluten, and a household avoiding it should know that. Carbohydrate converts to 53.8% of dry matter against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food. The plant side is pulling a fair weight in this bag.

The joint pair is printed in full, glucosamine at 0.04% and chondroitin at 0.014%. Cartilage and bone hold both of them naturally, and small amounts turn up in any meat-based food. Declaring them is how a maker says a measured helping has been added on top. That is the expected move on a recipe aimed at dogs in their later years.

Two small entries do quiet work. The prebiotic here is mannan oligosaccharide at 0.05%, drawn from yeast cell walls, and it is food for the bacteria lower down the gut. Yucca extract at the same 0.05% has a long history in kibble, where it works on the smell.

The mineral panel is dosed in print, and zinc appears twice: 38 mg as an amino acid chelate and 53 mg as the sulphate. Part of the dose therefore arrives in the form that is absorbed most easily. Selenium is the organic form at 0.2 mg rather than the plain mineral salt most labels carry, a small choice that tends to mark a maker paying attention. Flaxseed at 3% supplies plant omega 3, and the cranberry at 0.01% is a garnish.

Sold in 2kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works through roughly 249 grams a day, taking around 840 kcal a day as the target (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Weigh the first week out properly, since the calorie figure behind that estimate is itself an estimate.