Walker & Drake Working Dog review

This one settles in our Excellent band, a step above the middle of the cold-pressed field, which occupies Good. The chicken inclusion is the largest in the brand's cold-pressed catalogue, and the whole list can be checked in seconds. Both count for a good deal. Protein and processing reads Excellent, transparency Outstanding and nutritional balance Good.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried Chicken 41%, Pre Gelatinised Rice 26%, Sweet Potato, Flaked Potato, Brewers Yeast, Poultry Fat, Apple, Carrot, Tomato

A modern bag rarely carries only nine entries, and this one is the better for it. Dried chicken at 41% leads, pre gelatinised rice at 26% follows, and the remainder is sweet potato, flaked potato, brewers yeast, poultry fat, apple, carrot and tomato. Nothing on that list needs explaining to a buyer, and nothing on it is standing in for something better.

Chicken is the only meat named, and at 41% dried it is a substantial inclusion by any standard. Poultry fat is the complication, since the term covers any domestic bird. Chicken is the only species printed, but a dog held strictly away from duck, goose or turkey is not fully served here. For most dogs it will never matter; for an exclusion trial it does.

Cooked before the pressing, pre gelatinised rice is gentle and quick to digest. It is also the main reason the carbohydrate estimate reaches 40.0%, or 43.4% of dry matter, sitting right on the 43.2% typical for cold-pressed food. The two potatoes behind it add more of the same, so this is a pellet that leans on its starch rather than hiding it.

The analysis runs leaner than the name might lead you to expect, with fat declared at 7.0% and energy estimated at 315 kcal per 100g against the 351 usual for the format. Protein is healthy at 33.0%, converting to 35.9% of dry matter. That is no reason to pass it over for a working dog. It simply means a bigger bowl, which the label's own feeding guide already allows for.

The vitamin and trace element declaration is the same generous one used across the brand's cold-pressed range, with a per-kilo figure printed against each entry. What is absent compared with the rest of that range is everything optional: no glucosamine, no chondroitin, no FOS or Bio-Mos, no seaweed and no botanicals. Apple, carrot and tomato are the only produce on the list, and they sit right at its tail.

£3.50 a kilo, in a 12kg bag.

Put a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition at about 840 kcal a day, using the standard 110 × bodyweight^0.75 maintenance estimate. That is roughly 267 grams of this food, or £0.93 a day. For a 20 to 30kg dog the maker's own low activity guide gives 270 to 366 grams a day, and a dog in real work will sit above that.