Sneyd's Wonderdog Wonderdog High Gold review

Our reading puts this in the Poor band, and the reason is mostly what the label chooses not to say. The label works in family names: cereals, derivatives of vegetable origin, vegetable protein extracts, oils and fats. None of those names an ingredient, so there is no telling what goes into the bag from one month to the next, and protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency all come back Poor. The analysis agrees in one place in particular: carbohydrate estimated at 58.7% of dry matter, against 46.2% for adult dry food generally, working from an assumed 8% moisture because the label declares none. An average adult dry food reaches our Good band. It is still a serviceable ration for a hardy dog in work. That is what it was built for, and it delivers.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, Meat and Animal Derivatives (Beef, Chicken, Lamb & Pork), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin, Oils and Fats (0.25% fish oil), Various Sugars, Vegetable Protein Extracts, Minerals, Weetsweet.

Cereals leads the list, and that single word covers wheat, maize, rice, barley and oats in any combination. It is not automatically a poor ingredient, since the term takes in the best grains as well as the worst. It does mean the market, not a fixed recipe, decides which grain ends up in the bag. None of that troubles a dog who has never had a problem with grain. If you are trying to puzzle a dog out, it is a wall.

Meat and animal derivatives is the second entry, and the bracket after it is the label's saving grace, naming beef, chicken, lamb and pork. At one end of the term is prime muscle meat, at the other the parts of a carcass that never see a butcher's counter, and nothing here says which end this is. Knowing the four species at least tells you what your dog is eating, which is more than most labels using this term bother to do.

Fat at 7% is the number that defines this food. That is light, and set against protein at 21% it makes a ration that fills a dog without loading them. The dog it suits is one carrying a little extra weight, not a hard running athlete. Both figures are gentle for a kibble: protein converts to 22.8% of dry matter and fat to 7.6%.

Various sugars appears midway down the list. Sugar is in a dog's food for the same reason it is in ours. Weetsweet follows the minerals and is a trade name the label never explains, so there is no saying what it brings. Neither entry is a danger at the levels a complete food uses, and both are the sort of thing a careful reader would rather see spelled out.

The oils and fats entry names one thing only, fish oil at 0.25%, which brings a little omega 3 along with it. The vitamin and trace element panel is the precise part of this label. Vitamin E is at 60mg per kilo, iron at 80mg, zinc at 40mg, manganese at 25mg, copper at 13mg, iodine at 1.4mg and selenium at 0.15mg. Vitamins A and D3 are dosed in print alongside them. Every single one carries an amount.

Bags come in 2.5kg and 15kg, and there is a sample pack for a first go. A per kilo figure was not available for this one when we checked, so there is no daily figure to set beside it here.

On portions, the label asks 175 to 240 grams a day for a dog between 11kg and 20kg. A 15kg adult in moderate condition lands at around 261 grams, on an estimate of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance calculation).