Webbox Working Dog Complete Dry review

Our banding puts this in the Average band, a step below the Good band where the typical adult dry food finishes, and the distance is almost entirely about naming. Umbrella terms do most of the work here: cereals, meat and animal derivatives, vegetable protein extracts, and oils and fats. Any of them can cover something decent or something very ordinary, and the label never says which. Declared colourants pull it down further, because they do nothing for the dog. What the analysis shows, once the unusually high moisture is set aside, is protein at 29.9% of dry matter and carbohydrate at 38.8%, which is not the picture of an empty bowl. Read it for what it is: a straightforward ration for a hard-working dog, sold without pretending to be anything else.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals (Contains Barley, Wheat, Oats), Meat and Animal Derivatives (4% Beef in Red Disc), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (0.02% Yucca in triangle), Oils and Fats, Vegetable Protein Extracts (Contains Soya), Vegetables, Minerals. *Red Disc typically 35% of product, Triangle typically 10% of product, For allergens, see ingredients in bold.

Cereals leads the list, and the bracket after it names barley, wheat and oats. That bracket is worth something, since plenty of labels stop at the word cereals and leave you guessing. Barley and oats are both respectable dog food grains, easily digested once cooked and useful sources of fibre. Wheat is the one that gets talked about. No grain is tied to dietary intolerance in dogs more often, so seeing it named here is worth something.

Meat and animal derivatives is a legal heading covering the fleshy parts and processing products of warm blooded land animals. It is a wide term that can cover good material or ordinary material. The label narrows it only as far as 4% beef in the red disc, with a note that the disc is typically 35% of the product. Beef is digestible and palatable, and most dogs do well on it. What else went in is simply not identified.

Oils and fats, derivatives of vegetable origin and vegetable protein extracts are umbrella terms too, and only the last of those is narrowed, to soya. Soya is a plant protein used to bulk a recipe out, and dogs take up less of it than they do meat protein. So the number on the analysis climbs while the meal in the bowl gains less.

Where the label turns generous is the supplement panel. Vitamins A, D3 and E all carry declared amounts, with vitamin E at 110 mg per kilo. The trace elements are written out the same way: zinc at 100 mg, iron at 40 mg, manganese at 30 mg, copper at 7 mg, iodine at 1 mg and selenium at 0.25 mg. Colourants sit alongside them under sensory additives, and those are purely for the person holding the bag.

The moisture reading is the surprise of the analysis. At 28.0% this is far wetter than a normal kibble, and once that water is taken out the figures firm up considerably: protein at 29.9% of dry matter, fat at 13.9% and ash at 13.9%. The ash figure says there is a fair amount of bone and mineral in the mix, normal enough where derivatives do the work. Energy comes in at 350 kcal per 100g, right alongside the adult dry norm.

£1.07 a kilo, sold in 2kg bags and a 15kg sack.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 240 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to about £0.26 a day. Webbox writes its own guide for dogs actually out working, and it asks 200 to 340 grams for a dog between 10kg and 20kg. Expect the higher figure on the days your dog earns it.