CSJ Command Performance 30 (Hi Energy) review

Our scoring lands this one in the Good band, level with the middle of the adult dry shelf. Two things carry it there. Close to half the recipe is declared as salmon in one form or the other, and the estimated carbohydrate converts to 34.9% of dry matter against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food. Protein and processing sits at Good with nutritional balance beside it, while transparency reads Outstanding and value matches the overall Good band, so nothing here is propping anything else up.

Ingredients, as declared: 27% Salmon, 21% Salmon Meal, Whole White Rice, Whole Corn, Chicken Fat, Beet Pulp, Salmon Gravy, Brewers Yeast, Whole Egg, Whole Linseed, Minerals, Vitamins, Glucosamine, Methylsulfonylmethane, Condroitin Sulphate, Herbs.

Salmon at 27% comes first and salmon meal at 21% follows it, which is a useful pair to see together. Fresh fish comes with a lot of water in it, and the oven removes most of that. The meal is what holds the finished protein up, and at 21% there is plenty of it doing that. The analysis agrees: protein converts to 32.8% of dry matter and fat to 21.9%, which is where a working ration wants to be.

Whole white rice and whole corn do the carrying, both used whole rather than as milled fractions. Energy comes out at an estimated 387 kcal per 100g against 357 typical for adult dry food, and that density is the entire point of a food with this name.

Chicken fat is the second fat source and whole egg adds about as complete a protein as a dog can be given. Both are good things in a hard working recipe, and both mean this is not a one species food. Whole linseed sits alongside them, bringing plant omega 3s and a little useful fibre, while brewers yeast is the natural source of the mannan oligosaccharides that feed the gut's friendly bacteria.

Glucosamine and MSM appear together with chondroitin, the familiar trio for joints under load. No dose is printed next to any of them, so read them as a helpful inclusion. The salmon oils in the recipe do their share of the same job.

Herbs arrive as a single word at the end with nothing itemised behind it, which is common enough and matters little at that position. The trace minerals are supplied as sulphates rather than as chelates, a slightly older approach to mineral supply. Sodium selenite is the selenium form here, as it is on almost everything else on the shelf.

£3.09 a kilo, sold as a 15kg sack.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 217 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £0.67 a day. Hard working dogs get through more than that, so portion to the dog's condition.