Alpha Spirit Soft Food Puppy Complete review

Excellent is where this puppy recipe lands for us, and the pillars beneath it read Outstanding for nutritional balance and transparency, Good for protein and processing and Excellent for value. Semi-moist puppy food is a thin enough slice of the market that there is no cohort to measure it against, so the band rests entirely on what the label itself declares.

On that basis it does well. Animal ingredients fill the top of the list. Every entry carries a percentage, and the calcium figure is printed where a great many puppy labels simply leave a blank. That last point counts for more than it might sound, because calcium is the number that decides whether a big pup grows at a sensible pace.

Ingredients, as declared: Partially hydrolysed fresh meat and fish (35% fresh turkey meat, 20% fresh whole fish (arsenal (Sardinella aurita), mackerel (Scomber scombrus), horse mackerel (Trachurus spp.), sardine (Sardina pilchardus)), 15% fresh pork, 10% meat fresh duck, 5% fresh chicken liver, 5% hydrolysed starch, 5% vegetable glycerine (USP), 1% eggs, 1% Beta Vulgaris pulp, 1% brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), 0.75% sweet potato, 0.25% carrot, 0.25% apple, 0.25% cumin (Cuminum cyminum), 0.25% thyme (Thymus vulgaris), 0.25% turmeric (Curcuma longa)

Partial hydrolysis is the unusual move here. The meat and fish are broken down a step before the food is finished, which shortens the work a young digestive system has to do. It is also part of what keeps the pieces yielding. Moisture is declared at 25%, so a quarter of what lands in the bowl is water, and on a dry matter basis protein reaches 39.3% and fat 20.0%, with the estimated carbohydrate at 28.7%.

Turkey at 35% is the single biggest entry, a lean and easily digested bird that suits a stomach still learning its trade. Pork at 15% follows, a meat most British dogs have never met and therefore a useful one to have early in the diet, and duck at 10% adds a richer note behind it. Chicken liver at 5% is the smallest animal entry on the list and by some distance the most nutrient-dense, carrying vitamin A, B12 and copper.

Sardinella, mackerel, horse mackerel and sardine make up the 20% whole fish, each one named on the label. Whole fish means the bones and soft organs travel in with the flesh, and those are a natural source of the minerals a growing skeleton draws on month after month. Horse mackerel, for anyone reading the Latin twice, is simply another fish.

Behind the animals the list turns short and plain. Hydrolysed starch at 5% binds the food and vegetable glycerine at the same 5% keeps it from drying out, and neither entry names the plant it started as. Then come eggs, beet pulp and brewer's yeast at 1% each, sweet potato at 0.75%, and quarter-percent traces of carrot, apple, cumin, thyme and turmeric to close things out.

For a puppy label the mineral question is the one that really matters, and this one answers it. Calcium converting to 1.6% of dry matter is a figure a large or giant breed owner can act on. Too much calcium during growth is a genuine concern in big dogs, and a printed number is the only way to know where you stand. The added panel is generous alongside it. Taurine sits at 2680 mg for the heart, glucosamine at 3930 mg for the joints and iron at 62 mg, each given as a figure.

£7.28 a kilo, sold in 1.5kg, 3kg and 9kg bags.

Puppy portions move too fast for one daily figure to be much use, since a pup at four months and the same pup at ten months are effectively two different dogs. The label's own guide runs by current weight and by age. Weigh your pup regularly and walk the amounts down the chart as growth slows, and do not settle on one scoop early and leave it there.