Hero by Asda Working Dog Dry review

This one reads Poor on our scale. Almost every entry names a category where an ingredient should be. A label that will not name its meat, its grain or its oil leaves a reader nothing to check. A typical adult dry food gets into our Good band on the strength of being more specific.

In its favour, the recipe carries a comparatively generous meat declaration at 28%. Its carbohydrate estimate of 52.2% of dry matter is not far off the 46.2% typical for a food built this way. Fed to the dog it names, it is a plain, honest working ration.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, Meat and Animal Derivatives 28% (Including 4% Chicken), Vegetables (4% Peas), Oils and Fats, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin, Minerals, Chicory Root (0.1%)

Working dog food is sold for dogs in genuine work, and the feeding guide is written accordingly. It asks 275 to 465 grams a day for a dog between 10kg and 20kg. That is a lot of kibble, and it is the clearest signal on the bag about who the recipe is meant for.

Meat and animal derivatives at 28% is the protein source and the largest single entry after the cereals. The term covers the parts of slaughtered land animals not sold for human food, which spans good material and ordinary material alike, with nothing on the label to tell you which is in the sack. Chicken at 4% is the only species named.

Cereals, vegetables, oils and fats and derivatives of vegetable origin round the list out. Peas are pinned down at 4% within the vegetables, and chicory root at 0.1% is there for its inulin, a prebiotic fibre that supports the gut's own bacteria.

The tension worth understanding is between the badge and the energy. Protein converts to 25.0% of dry matter and fat to 9.2%, and the food delivers 331 kcal per 100g against 357 for the typical adult dry food. A hard working dog needs a great many calories, and this recipe supplies them by volume rather than by density, which is why the portions on the chart run so large.

The added panel comes with doses printed: zinc 40 mg, iron 40 mg, manganese 30 mg, copper 8 mg, iodine 2 mg and selenium 0.1 mg per kilo. Vitamin A runs to 12000 IU per kilo, with vitamin D3 at 1200 IU and vitamin E at 90 mg. The minerals are oxides and sulphates rather than chelates, the straightforward inorganic forms.

£0.74 a kilo, sold in a 17kg sack.

For a 15kg adult in moderate condition, around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate) works out at about 254 grams and £0.19 a day. A dog of that size in real work will need considerably more, and the label's own chart asks 275 to 465 grams for dogs between 10kg and 20kg.