VetSpec Working Dog Food Adult review

The Good band is a fair place for a recipe with no ambitions beyond feeding a busy dog properly, and that is where our scoring puts it. Its protein and processing and nutritional balance readings both come out Good, held there by the rice pairing and the oats, which between them take estimated carbohydrate to 42.9% of dry matter. What pulls the total up is the meat meal at the front and the openness of the label. Chicken meat meal at 28.0% is the single biggest entry, protein converts to 29.7% of dry matter, and every trace mineral is printed with its dose. The middle of the adult dry shelf lands in that same Good band, and this one gets there without needing to be fancy about it. The calorie figure is our estimate, since the label declares none.

One point about the name. A working dog food is written for a dog burning real energy, so the same bag fed to a dog with a quieter routine simply needs smaller portions rather than a different food.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken meat meal (28.0%), Brown rice (16.4%), White rice (16.4%), Fresh chicken (9.2%), peas (6.0%), sugar beet pulp, whole oats, chicken fat (5.0%),whole linseeds, chicken digest as gravy (1.8%), fish oil, glucosamine HCl (0.25%), calcium carbonate, sodium chloride, culinary herbs blend (dried seaweed, chicory extract as source of fructo-oligosaccharides (0.08%), yeast extract as source of mannanoligosaccharides (0.08%), alfalfa, yucca extract, rosemary, fennel, basil, thyme, oregano, parsley, aniseed), chondroitin sulphate (0.03%)

Chicken meat meal at 28.0% heads everything else on the list, and for a working food that is the right way round. Meal is meat dried before it is weighed, so the label figure survives into the kibble largely intact. Fresh chicken at 9.2% will shrink considerably in the oven. Protein converts to 29.7% of dry matter and fat to 15.4%, a solid working pair.

Rice does the starch in two forms, brown at 16.4% and white at 16.4%, with whole oats behind them. Brown rice keeps its bran and its fibre, white rice is quicker to digest, and a dog working through the day gets something useful from each. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 42.9% of dry matter, a little under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food but well above what a meat-heavy recipe would show. That is the design working, and no corner has been cut.

Chicken fat at 5.0% names its animal, always a better read than an anonymous fat, and whole linseeds and fish oil bring the omega 3 between them. Chicken digest at 1.8% is the palatant here, chicken broken down into a broth and brushed over the kibble, and a tired dog coming home often needs that encouragement more than a fresh one does.

The joint pairing is small and the label is honest about the size of it: glucosamine hydrochloride at 0.25% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.03%, both printed with weights. Read them as everyday upkeep for joints that get used, not as a substitute for veterinary help once a dog is properly sore.

Sugar beet pulp supplies the fibre. The culinary herbs blend at the close of the list carries the prebiotic pair, chicory extract supplying FOS and yeast extract supplying MOS, both at 0.08%, with dried seaweed bringing iodine. Peas at 6.0% sit alongside them, bringing a little plant protein with their starch.

All the trace minerals carry printed doses. Copper and zinc are declared twice each, once as a simple oxide or salt and once in chelated form, which a dog takes up more easily. Selenium is given as selenised yeast. Methionine is added by name at 132 mg per kilo, an amino acid worth topping up in a recipe where cereal takes a share of the protein.

£3.32 a kilo, sold as a single 15kg sack.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 240 grams a day on the estimated 350 kcal per 100g. Against a target of around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), that is £0.80 a day. A dog really at work will need a good deal more, and the label allows anything from 130 grams for a small dog up to 430 grams for the largest.