Bakers Edward Baker Puppy review

Our reading puts this one in our Average band, under the Good band that a typical puppy kibble reaches. Protein and processing comes out Average with nutritional balance and transparency both a step up in Good, so this is an even result rather than one poor showing dragging the rest down.

What holds it back is the overall shape of the recipe, not any one line in it. One named meat sits at the top, then a long run of grain with a soya meal among it, and two entries that decline to say which animal they came from.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey Meal (27%), Wheat*, Corn*, Soya Meal, Animal Fats, Wheat Middlings*, Rice*, Dried Beet Pulp, Digest, Dried Chicory Root*1 (0.5%), Minerals, Fish Oil, Dried Carrot* (0.07%), Dried Spinach* (0.07%), Dried Parsley* (0.07%).Natural Ingredients, 1Natural Prebiotic

Turkey meal at 27% is the meat, and the dried form is the part worth knowing about. The water is out of it already, so that 27% survives the oven more or less intact. Turkey is easy on the digestion and leaner than chicken, which is no bad thing in a food a pup will eat every day for months.

After that the list turns to grain. Wheat, corn, wheat middlings and rice fill the upper half, with soya meal among them. Of all the ingredients in dog food, wheat is the one intolerance turns up against most often. Soya protein is a good deal less usable to a dog than protein from meat, so a fair share of the declared protein here comes from plants and not from the turkey.

The animal fats and the digest give nothing away. Digest is what makes a kibble taste of something and animal fats supply energy, but neither says which animal it came from. For a pup with a suspected intolerance that is the gap that makes any detective work impossible.

The better additions are real and small. Dried chicory root at 0.5% is a proper prebiotic, and the bacteria in the lower gut make a meal of it. Fish oil brings marine omega 3 for skin, coat and brain. At 0.07% apiece, the dried carrot, spinach and parsley are seasoning and little more.

The declared analysis goes as far as protein at 28.0%, fat at 14.0%, fibre at 3.0%, ash at 7.0% and moisture at 9.0%. Calcium is not among them, and in a food sold for growth that is the single figure an owner most wants in print, especially with the range offered for pups of every adult size. Energy at 354 kcal per 100g is our estimate, not a label declaration.

The vitamin and trace element panel is dosed in print. Selenium is supplied as sodium selenite, the mineral form most of the industry uses, not the yeast bound version found on more expressive labels.

Sold in a 2kg bag.

Growth feeding is a moving target. Take your amount from the pack guide, matched to your pup's age and expected adult size, and revise it every few weeks as they grow into it.