Skinner's Field & Trial Maintenance review

Our scoring places this recipe in the Average band, a step below the Good band the typical adult dry food occupies, and the composition explains that in its first two words. Maize and wheat come before the meat, and estimated carbohydrate reaches 59.5% of dry matter where the typical adult dry food carries 46.2%. Our scoring asks how much of the bowl is meat and how clearly the label names it, and this recipe was never written to answer either question well. It was written to feed a yard of dogs reliably through a working season, and on those terms it delivers.

Ingredients, as declared: Maize, Wheat, Poultry meat meal, Barley, Poultry fat, Beet pulp, Vitamins & minerals

Seven entries make up the whole list, which is refreshing in its way. Maize leads and wheat follows, and between them they are most of the kibble. Maize is a solid energy cereal once cooked. Wheat is the one that draws argument. The great majority of dogs eat it perfectly happily. Where a dog does end up with an itchy coat or an unsettled stomach, wheat is named more often than any other grain.

Poultry meat meal comes third. As a dried and rendered ingredient it carries protein densely, so third place understates it compared with where a fresh meat in the same position would land. What the word poultry does not do is name a bird: chicken, turkey, duck and goose all qualify, and the poultry fat behind it is the same story in fat form.

Barley and beet pulp finish the food side. Barley is a slow, fibre-rich cereal that most dogs handle well. Beet pulp ferments gently in the gut and helps firm things up at the other end. Protein works out at 19.6% of dry matter and fat at 12.0%, with estimated carbohydrate at 59.5%, which is the profile of an unhurried maintenance food rather than a performance one.

The vitamin and trace element panel is printed properly, with vitamins A, D3 and E declared alongside iron, iodine, copper, manganese, zinc and selenium, each with an amount beside it. Plain forms are what the brand has chosen here, zinc as the oxide and selenium as sodium selenite. The chelated versions appear further up its range. This is a base ration and it has never claimed to be anything else.

£1.90 a kilo, sold in 2.5kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 235 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That works out at £0.45 a day. The label's own guide gives 150 grams for dogs up to 10kg and 150 to 260 grams from 10kg to 20kg, written for an animal in work.