Eukanuba Breed Specific Cocker Spaniel Adult review

Cocker Spaniel Adult settles in our Good band, the same one most adult dry foods land in. Most of the lifting comes from protein, which converts to 29.3% of dry matter, a strong figure for a cereal led kibble. Nutritional balance reads Average, held there by maize and wheat sitting close to the front, while protein and processing reads Good and transparency Excellent. Take the result as a sound everyday food for the breed rather than a standout.

Ingredients, as declared: dried chicken and turkey (29% including chicken 17%, a natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate and taurine), maize, wheat, sorghum, barley, pork fat, fresh chicken (4%), dried beet pulp (2.8%), chicken gravy, minerals (including sodium hexametaphosphate 0.38%), dried whole egg, fish oil (a natural source of omega-3 fatty acids), fructooligosaccharides (0.29%, a natural prebiotic), linseed.

At the top sits dried chicken and turkey at 29%, with the label naming chicken at 17% of that share. Blended poultry entries do not usually split that generously. Fresh chicken adds a further 4%, and being mostly water before baking it does more for flavour than for substance. Protein finishes at 27% as declared, or 29.3% of dry matter once the assumed 8% moisture comes out.

Fat held down to 12% is the interesting decision here. Cockers are famously good at finding food and famously bad at leaving any. Energy here is moderate, around 350 kcal per 100 grams against the 357 typical for adult dry food. For the breed, that is a sensible thing to do. L-carnitine at 50mg per kilo is the usual companion to that approach, an amino acid relative involved in shifting fatty acids into the machinery that burns them.

The cereal blend is maize, wheat, sorghum and barley. Of the four, barley suits a dog best and sorghum carries no gluten. Wheat is the one most often linked to dietary intolerance, and its position on this list matters if your dog has form there. Carbohydrate lands at 47.9% of dry matter, a little above the 46.2% typical of the category, which is the natural consequence of taking fat out of a recipe.

The coat side is where this recipe puts its effort. Zinc is dosed at 120mg per kilo, and zinc is the trace mineral skin leans on hardest. Marine omega 3 comes from the fish oil in a form a dog uses straight away, with linseed behind it for the plant version. Vitamin E at 250mg and vitamin C at 56mg round out the antioxidants. Manganese at 41mg, iron at 72mg, copper at 14mg and selenium at 0.07mg complete the trace panel, with rosemary extract at 21mg and tea extract at 11mg as natural preservatives.

Lower down the list, the fibre is beet pulp at 2.8%. Fructooligosaccharides at 0.29% is the prebiotic aimed at the large intestine, and sodium hexametaphosphate at 0.38% works on plaque before it becomes tartar. Dried whole egg contributes a small amount of easily used protein, and the added fat is pork fat, named to its animal and not left as an unspecified animal fat.

Glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate and taurine are all credited to the poultry meal on the label. Those do genuinely occur in meat and cartilage, so the claim is fair, but there is no separately dosed joint supplement in the recipe. Calcium works out at 1.53% of dry matter, a settled adult figure.

£3.01 a kilo, in one bag size, seven and a half kilos.

For a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, the daily portion is about 240 grams and £0.72, on an assumed need of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). A typical adult Cocker sits below that weight, so expect the real figure for your own dog to come in under it.