CSJ Rocket Fuel review

The band here is Good, the same one the typical adult dry food occupies, but this recipe arrives at it by a different route than most of its neighbours. Protein at 33.3% of dry matter and carbohydrate at 39.5% both read better than typical for a kibble, and several trace minerals come partly in chelated form. Pulling the other way is the plant side of the list, where wheat and maize take second and third place, and the fact that a percentage is declared for the chicken and nothing else. Protein and processing and nutritional balance each settle at Good on that basis, while transparency reads Outstanding.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken meal (min 35%), Wheat, Maize, Chicken fat, Chicken gravy, Beet pulp, Minerals, Salmon oil, Yeast, Dried fruits & herbs (total 1000mg/kg; Blackcurrant, Rosemary, Pomegranate, Milk thistle, Seaweed, Spearmint, Parsley, Marshmallow root, Marjoram, Oregano), Yucca schidigera.

Chicken meal at a minimum of 35% opens the list, and its form matters here. Meal is chicken with the water already removed, so the declared figure stays close to what is actually in the finished kibble rather than a fresh weight that shrinks away in the oven. Chicken is the most digestible everyday meat for most dogs. Its one real drawback follows from how widely it is used, since intolerances turn up to chicken more than to anything else.

Wheat and maize follow, and between them they set the character of the recipe. Both cook into a firm kibble and both are perfectly usable energy for a dog with no sensitivity to them. Of the two, wheat draws the most argument, since it is the cereal most often implicated when a dog does react to grain. It is here in quantity, and that is worth knowing.

Chicken fat and chicken gravy sit after the cereals, where they add energy and make the kibble worth eating. Salmon oil comes further down as the omega 3 source, and it is a good one. Even with poultry on the front of the sack, this is not a fish free recipe.

Beet pulp handles the fibre with yeast adding a little more, and a dried fruit and herb blend totalling 1000 mg/kg finishes the list. Treat that blend as flavour and antioxidant polish rather than nutrition to count on, and note that the rosemary in it also earns its keep as a natural preservative.

The mineral panel is better built than a recipe at this level needs. Iron, copper, zinc and manganese each appear twice, once as a simple salt and again as a chelate, and the chelated forms are generally the easier ones for a dog's gut to take up. Adding the two zinc entries together gives 100 mg/kg, a generous figure for a coat living outdoors.

£1.68 a kilo, sold as a 15 kg sack.

To put a rough day rate on it, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat around 205 grams to reach about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes out near £0.35 a day. A genuinely working dog will get through rather more than that, and CSJ's own less active table runs from 125 to 240 grams for a 10kg to 20kg dog before any work is factored in.