Hero by Asda Small Dog Adult Dry review

Our band here is Poor, and the ingredient list explains it faster than the analysis does. Cereals lead, and the meat is given as a category with no animal named. Vegetable protein extracts sit third, a term that names neither the plant nor the process used to refine it. Saying more is most of what carries a typical adult dry food into our Good band.

Read as a practical bowl for a small dog, though, it does the basic job it sets out to do. Protein is respectable at 26.1% of dry matter, the energy density suits a dog who eats in small amounts, and the mineral panel is dosed in print rather than left vague.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, Meat and Animal Derivatives 26% (including 4% Chicken), Vegetable Protein Extracts, Vegetables (4% Peas in the Pea Component), Oils and Fats, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin, Minerals, Chicory Root (0.1%)

Vegetable protein extracts are the entry that most shapes how you read this label. They are refined plant proteins, usually drawn from soya, maize or wheat, and they lift a headline protein figure without adding meat. For a dog, animal protein does more than plant protein does, so the 24% on the analysis is doing a little less work than it first appears to.

The animal side is meat and animal derivatives at 26%. As a legal catch all, the term says nothing about species or cut. Chicken named at 4% is the one firm fact on that front.

Cereals, vegetables, oils and fats and derivatives of vegetable origin fill out the rest under category names. A maker can follow the market from batch to batch with labelling like this. It also means a dog with a suspected intolerance cannot be worked out from this list alone.

Nothing on this label reads better than the analysis. Protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter and fat to 10.9%, with carbohydrate estimated at 50.5% against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food, so the plant share sits only a little above normal. At 363 kcal per 100g the food is slightly denser than the 357 typical, which is a sensible fit for a dog whose daily portion is measured in tens of grams.

Chicory root at 0.1% supplies inulin as a prebiotic. The added minerals come with printed doses: zinc 40 mg, iron 40 mg, manganese 30 mg, copper 8 mg, iodine 2 mg and selenium 0.1 mg per kilo. Vitamin A is at 12000 IU, vitamin D3 at 1200 IU and vitamin E at 90 mg per kilo. The forms used are oxides and sulphates, the plain inorganic versions, not chelates.

£1.19 a kilo, in a 2.5kg bag.

Our standard comparison dog, a 15kg adult in moderate condition needing around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the usual maintenance estimate), would eat about 231 grams a day at £0.28. For the dogs this recipe is actually aimed at, the label asks 60 to 100 grams up to 5kg and 100 to 200 grams from 5kg to 10kg.