Eden Sporting & Working Dry: Country Cuisine review

The three cuisines reach our Excellent band together, with very little between them, and all of them finish above the Good band where the middle of the adult dry category sits. The order follows the protein. Original at 45.7% of dry matter and Fish at 46.7% are unusually meat dense for a kibble. Country trades some of that protein for fat, at 21.7% of dry matter, and that is precisely what a dog burning through a long day on the hill wants from a meal.

Ingredients, as declared: Freshly Prepared Duck (32%), Freshly Prepared Lamb (14%), Dried Duck (13%), Dried Sweet Potato, Dried Rabbit (8%), Duck Fat (5%), Tapioca, Chickpea Flour, Dried Lamb (3%), Dried Whole Eggs (2%), Duck Liver (2%), Freshly Prepared Venison (1%), Pea Fibre, Minerals, Dried Carrot, Dried Apple, Dried Spinach, Coconut Oil (0.06%), Lucerne, Dried Rosehips, Burdock Root Powder, Camomile Powder, Dried Seaweed, Dried Cranberries, Dried Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Fructooligosaccharides (Prebiotic FOS; 0.04%/480 mg/kg)), Glucosamine (0.03%/340 mg/kg), Methylsulphonylmethane (0.03%/340 mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.02%/240 mg/kg), Aniseed, Fenugreek, Thyme, Dried Marjoram, Oregano, Parsley, Sage

Each recipe opens with named animal entries and keeps going for several lines. Six fish entries fill Fish Cuisine: fresh salmon at 22.5% and dried herring at 21.5% lead, with dried salmon and dried fish each at 8% and trout and white fish at 6%. Original Cuisine leads with chicken at 19% fresh and 18% dried before bringing in salmon and herring. Country Cuisine puts fresh duck at 32% ahead of fresh lamb at 14% and dried duck at 13%.

Freshly prepared meat goes on the scales before it goes in the oven, and the oven takes out most of the water. Their smaller percentages understate how much of the finished work the dried entries do. The meat proves itself in the analysis. Estimated carbohydrate runs from 22.8% to 26.0% of dry matter across the three, against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Dried sweet potato, tapioca and chickpea flour carry what starch there is, with pea fibre for bulk and lucerne alongside. Nothing in any of the three is grain, and the plant side is kept deliberately small.

The joint supplements carry printed doses, with glucosamine and methylsulphonylmethane at 340 mg/kg and chondroitin sulphate at 240 mg/kg in Country Cuisine, and marginally higher doses in the other two. Dried chicory root extract supplies FOS at 480 mg/kg as the prebiotic, feeding the gut's own friendly bacteria, and taurine is dosed at 960 mg/kg.

Country Cuisine adds duck liver at 2%, an organ meat that is both nutrient dense and the reason a tired, hungry dog will empty the bowl, plus a trace of coconut oil at 0.06%. Fish Cuisine answers with green lipped mussel and spirulina at 0.1% each, so a dog on that recipe is taking in shellfish as well as fish.

Trace minerals come as chelates in all three, the form a dog's gut absorbs more readily, and Country and Fish list their selenium as selenised yeast. Every dose is printed on the label, which is the kind of detail that makes a food straightforward to check before you commit a season to it.

Fresh duck at 32% ahead of fresh lamb at 14% and dried duck at 13%, with dried rabbit at 8%, dried lamb at 3% and venison at 1%. Duck liver at 2% is the palatability card, and at 20% fat and 390 kcal per 100g this is the richest of the three, the working dog's pick within a working dog range. It is also the only recipe here with no fish in it.

£5.67 a kilo, with the kibble offered in medium and small.

Feeding a 15kg adult in moderate condition comes to about £1.22 a day on Country Cuisine, £1.28 on Original and £1.30 on Fish. That works from around 840 kcal a day for a pet dog, taken from 110 × bodyweight^0.75. For the same dog the label's working guide is far more generous, asking 314 grams. A dog in full season gets through a bag considerably faster than a dog on the sofa.