Husse Endurance review

This finishes in the Good band, where the average adult dry food finishes too, and the analysis is what carries it there. Protein converts to 34.8% of dry matter and fat to 25.0%, which leaves carbohydrate at an estimated 28.7% where a typical adult dry food runs at 46.2%. That is a genuinely meat-forward set of figures for a recipe still using wheat. On the strength of those figures, protein and processing reads Good and nutritional balance Excellent. Several entries on the list go unnamed, so transparency reads Poor, and that is what holds the reading down.

Ingredients, as declared: dried chicken, wheat, wheat middlings, animal fat, rice, hydrolysed animal protein, linseed, vegetable fibres, dried fish, salmon oil, minerals, inulin (source of fructo-oligosaccharides), glucosamine (500 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (500 mg/kg).

Dried chicken opens the list, already free of the water a fresh meat entry would lose in the oven, so its top position is a fair reflection of what ends up in the kibble. Wheat and wheat middlings follow, the middlings being the fibre-rich fraction left over after milling.

A careful reader will stop on wheat. Most dogs handle it without any bother at all, and it binds a kibble well. Wheat also happens to be the grain most often tied to intolerance, so it is the entry to weigh up if your dog has a track record of itchy skin or a loose gut. What is unusual here is how little the grain shows in the analysis. Carbohydrate still lands at an estimated 28.7% of dry matter, well under the 46.2% typical, because the protein and fat sit so high.

The joint pair is dosed properly. Glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate are each declared at 500 mg per kilo, aimed at cartilage that takes repeated loading, and both doses are printed rather than hinted at. L-carnitine at 300 mg per kilo has its part in turning fat into usable energy, which fits the brief exactly.

Fat at 23% is what makes this a working food. It is also the reason a dog whose exercise drops away needs the portion adjusted promptly, whether that comes from injury or from a change of season. Vitamin E is dosed at 580 mg and vitamin C at 400 mg per kilo, the largest antioxidant pairing on this label.

The unnamed entries are worth setting out plainly. Animal fat describes a group and not a species, and so do hydrolysed animal protein and dried fish. All three are doing a real job. Together they mean this label cannot support a strict single-protein plan. Salmon oil is at least named, and it brings the marine omega 3 that linseed on its own supplies more slowly.

Calcium works out at 1.63% of dry matter, which is a comfortable adult level, and inulin adds a little prebiotic fibre near the end of the list.

£4.00 a kilo, sold as a 15kg bag or as two 15kg bags together.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 210 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £0.84 a day. The label's table asks 100 to 240 grams for a 10kg to 20kg dog, and a genuinely working dog will sit at the top of a range like that.