Able Puppy: Chicken and Duck review

All six recipes reach our Outstanding band, so the choice between them comes down to the animals and not the placing. It is worth saying what that means in this category: raw sets the highest bar we score against, and the typical raw food for growing dogs carries the same band word. Holding it six times over is the accomplishment, since nobody here is clearing the field. Protein and processing reads Outstanding on all six and transparency Excellent throughout, while value sits at Outstanding on every recipe and nutritional balance reads Outstanding on most of the menu.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 75% (Gizzards 40%, Drumsticks 35%), Duck Liver 5%, Carrot 9.6%, Butternut Squash 2.5%, Broccoli 2.5%, Kale 2.5%, Flaxseed Meal 2%, Kelp Meal 0.2%, Cod Liver Oil 0.15%, Wheatgerm Oil 0.15%, Cranberries 0.15%, Blueberries 0.15%, Botanicals 0.1% (Turmeric, Spirulina Powder, Green Lipped Mussel Powder, Chicory Root Powder, Spinach Powder, Bilberry Powder, Gingko Biloba Powder).

One construction, six casts. The animal share is 80% on every label, and the vegetable fraction behind it runs carrot, butternut squash, broccoli and kale. Behind those sit flaxseed meal for fibre and omega fats, kelp meal, the two oils and a few berries. Some of these labels itemise every cut and percentage while others summarise in a line, so the amount of detail you get varies by recipe.

Bone and offal sit inside the meat figure. Ribs and drumsticks bring the bone that supplies calcium, hearts and gizzards bring dense working muscle, and liver appears in nearly every recipe, which is where a good deal of an animal's micronutrition actually lives.

Nothing on these labels is a synthetic vitamin blend. Able describes kelp as its iodine source, wheatgerm oil as its vitamin E, cod liver oil as its vitamin D and the liver as its B vitamins. The recipes are built so that those ingredients are always present. It is a whole-food approach with the organ meats doing the heavy lifting, and it does mean there are no printed doses to check against.

That cod liver oil deserves its own line, because it makes every recipe here a fish-containing one. It earns its place for the vitamin D and the omega 3 fats, and for most young dogs it is simply a bonus. For a household keeping fish out of the bowl, it is the detail to register before ordering.

The tail of the list is deliberately small. The botanicals are printed at 0.1%: green lipped mussel powder, spirulina, turmeric and several berry and root powders. Cranberries and blueberries sit just ahead of them at 0.15%. Able prints the percentages, and that is the honest way to present flourishes on a recipe whose weight sits in its meat.

Carbohydrate on these labels is estimated by difference rather than measured, and with no starch ingredient anywhere the figure absorbs everything the analysis left unaccounted. Two of the six estimate at zero and the others spread out from there. Where a figure looks out of step with the list, as it does on the Beef and Lamb with Duck, the ingredients are the better guide.

Lightest of the six at 124 kcal per 100g, which means the biggest bowl and a gentle way in for a dog new to raw. Chicken gizzards at 40% and drumsticks at 35% carry the bulk of it, and the organ share is duck liver at 5%.

Each of the six is £6.05 a kilo. A single portion runs from 150g to 500g, and multipack boxes hold about 4kg to 5kg. Both grinds are available across the range, the chunky and the non chunky.

Daily amounts for a young dog climb and then fall back as growth finishes, so a single figure would mislead. For scale, the feeding estimate puts a 5kg dog under twelve months at 250g to 300g a day, roughly double the 100g to 150g the same dog would take as an adult.