WorkingHPRs Grain Free Large Breed: Salmon with Trout, Sweet Potato & Asparagus review

This recipe lands in our Good band, level with where the typical adult dry food settles. Protein and processing reads Good and transparency reads Outstanding, helped by a label that prints its meat split, its joint doses and its prebiotic doses rather than leaving you to guess. Nutritional balance reads Average, and that is the figure holding it where it is. Declaring 50% fish sounds bigger than the 26.1% protein it converts to, because most of that fish is fresh and fresh fish is largely water. For a big adult dog it remains an easy, well constructed bowl.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon and Trout 50% (including Freshly Prepared Salmon & Freshly Prepared Trout 33%, Dried Salmon 15%, Salmon Stock 2%) Sweet Potato (24%), Peas (9%), Potato, Beet Pulp, Linseed, Omega 3 Supplement, Minerals, Vitamins, Vegetable Stock, Asparagus (0.3%), Glucosamine (170 mg/kg), Methylsulfonylmethane (170 mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (125 mg/kg), FOS (96 mg/kg), MOS (24 mg/kg)

The label splits the 50% salmon and trout into parts: 33% of it freshly prepared, 15% dried salmon and 2% salmon stock. The fresh share is the headline and the dried share is the workhorse. Fresh fish carries a lot of water into the oven, and dried salmon has already given its water up. What lands in the bowl is protein at 26.1% of dry matter and fat at 14.1%, a steady balance for a heavy dog on daily walks.

Among the plants, sweet potato at 24% is first, with peas at 9% and potato after it and beet pulp supplying the fibre. There is no cereal on the list at all. Estimated carbohydrate works out at 47.3% of dry matter, close to the 46.2% that is typical for adult dry food. The grain free promise here is about which plants the recipe uses.

Three joint ingredients arrive with numbers next to them: glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 170 mg/kg each, and chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg. Not many large breed bags go that far. Glucosamine and chondroitin are both natural components of cartilage and both are usual choices for supporting a big dog's joints, and a printed dose at least lets you compare one bag against another.

FOS at 96 mg/kg and MOS at 24 mg/kg are prebiotic fibres. They are in the recipe to encourage the friendly bacteria living in the large intestine. Linseed adds omega 3s in their plant form. A dog is slower to convert those than the marine kind, so the salmon in the recipe does the quicker work on skin and coat.

Calcium reads 1.52% of dry matter, a comfortable level for an adult of any size, and asparagus at 0.3% is the flourish that gives the recipe its name. The Omega 3 Supplement is the single entry that keeps its source to itself, and the vegetable stock is the other broad term on an otherwise specific list.

£4.40 a kilo, sold in a 15kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 232g a day of this recipe, which is £1.02. That assumes a maintenance need of roughly 840 kcal a day from the standard 110 × bodyweight^0.75 estimate. A large breed dog will of course eat a good deal more than that, so scale up from the maker's own chart. The waistline has the final say.