Sneyd's Wonderdog Wonderdog Worker 21 review

This one lands in our Poor band. Ordinary adult dry food sits two bands above it, in our Good band. Most of the distance is what the label withholds. Five of the six entries are category terms, so the actual grain, the actual vegetable material and the actual fat are all left to the maker's discretion. Moisture is missing from the analysis as well. The rest of the distance is the shape of the food itself: protein converts to 22.8% of dry matter and fat to 7.6%, which is genuinely lean, and starch is doing the energy work instead. For a steadily active dog on a fixed routine that is a workable everyday ration. It simply gives a label reader very little to hold on to.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, meat and animal derivatives (Chicken, Lamb, Beef & Pork), derivatives of vegetable origin, oils and fats, minerals.

Protein at 22.8% of dry matter and fat at 7.6% make this the leanest sort of dry food, and the two figures explain each other. With so little fat, energy has to come from starch, and the estimated 322 kcal per 100 grams sits under the 357 typical for adult dry food. The practical consequence is volume: a dog genuinely working hard will need a bigger bowl of this than of a richer kibble to take in the same energy.

Cereals leads the list without naming a grain, and derivatives of vegetable origin follows the same pattern further down. Both terms are broad enough to cover good material and plain material alike, and because neither pins anything down the mix can be adjusted from batch to batch. For a dog with no sensitivities that is of no consequence at all. For a dog you are still working out, it removes the possibility of matching food to reaction.

Meat and animal derivatives sits second, and the bracket after it does name chicken, lamb, beef and pork. That is a genuine piece of disclosure, since the category term on its own would tell you nothing about the animals involved. What stays unsaid is which parts of them are used and how the four are balanced, so a dog reacting to one of them cannot be separated out.

Oils and fats is the last of the umbrellas and it covers the whole of the added fat. It amounts to only 7.6% of dry matter, so the question matters less here than it would on a rich recipe. Nothing in the wording tells you whether the fat is animal or vegetable.

The trace minerals are dosed properly in print. Iron is at 80 mg, zinc at 40 mg, manganese at 25 mg, copper at 13 mg, iodine at 1.4 mg and selenium at 0.15 mg per kilo. These are sulphate forms, the workaday choice next to the chelates you find on more elaborate labels. Selenium comes as sodium selenite, one of only two forms permitted here and used at a small, tightly regulated dose.

£1.93 a kilo, sold as single 15kg bags and in quantities of 30 and 60 bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs roughly 261 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), which comes to £0.50 a day. The label's chart asks 240 to 350 grams for a dog between 21kg and 30kg, so weigh a portion at the start and let the waistline correct it.