Belcando Puppy Gravy review

This is a case where the reading is harder on the label than on the recipe. The score sits in our Good band, level with the Good that a typical growth kibble occupies, and protein and processing is the pillar that reads lowest at Average. The meat entries are the reason. Fresh poultry meat at 30% and a low-fat dried poultry protein at 19% sound substantial, and they are. But neither names a bird, and the hydrolysed poultry liver and poultry fat behind them are just as unspecific. The cereal side, by contrast, is plainly declared, with rice at 23% and maize after it taking carbohydrate to 39.5% of dry matter, which lands almost exactly on the 39.0% typical. So the analysis is not the problem here. What the label declines to tell you is.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh poultry meat (30%); Rice (23%); Low-fat poultry protein, dried (19%); Maize; Fish meal from sea fish (6%); Poultry fat; Vegetable oil (palm, coconut); Dried egg (2.5%); Hydrolysed gelatine (2.5%); Dried baker's yeast (2.5%); Dried carob bean gum; De-sugared dried beet pulp; Dicalcium phosphate; Hydrolysed poultry liver; Flaxseed; Salmon oil; Chia seeds; Sodium chloride; Potassium chloride

The two poultry entries at the top are doing different jobs. The fresh meat at 30% is mostly water when it goes in. The low-fat dried poultry protein at 19% went into the mix dry, so nearly all of that 19% is still there in the bag. The declared 29.0% protein, 32.2% of dry matter, is a respectable growth figure and comes largely from that second entry.

Neither of them says which bird. Chicken, duck, goose and turkey all live inside the word poultry, and the hydrolysed poultry liver further down keeps the same silence. For a pup that eats anything this is simply how a lot of European labels are written. For a pup you are keeping notes on, it is the missing line.

Rice at 23% and maize form the starch base, with beet pulp de-sugared before it goes in. Carbohydrate lands at 35.5% as fed, 39.5% of dry matter, essentially level with the 39.0% typical for a growth kibble, so the cereals here are doing a normal job. Crude fibre at 2.0% is the lightest reading on this panel.

Fish meal from sea fish at 6% is a bigger inclusion than most poultry recipes bother with, and salmon oil, flaxseed and chia seeds follow it. Between them they give the recipe its omega 3. Poultry leads the list, but fish still shows on the allergen picture because of them.

Fat is 17.0%, 18.9% of dry matter, and comes from poultry fat plus a vegetable oil identified as palm and coconut. Naming the plants is more open than the bare term, though animal fats remain the better match for a dog, and this recipe uses both.

The mineral side is sound for growth. Dicalcium phosphate is added deliberately, calcium converts to 1.39% of dry matter, and crude ash is 6.5%, or 7.2% of dry matter. The bag is listed for every size from the smallest breeds to the giants, and that calcium figure is in the right place for all of them.

The additive panel is fully dosed: vitamin D3 at 1,500 IU, vitamin E at 150 mg, taurine at 500 mg, iron at 200 mg, zinc at 125 mg and iodine at 2.0 mg. Vitamin A is the largest of the vitamin figures, with tocopherol extracts at 48 mg. Lecithin comes in at 2,400 mg, a substantial dose of an emulsifier that helps a young dog handle the fats in the bowl. Energy at 370 kcal per 100g is our estimate rather than a declaration.

£4.99 a kilo, sold in 4kg and 12.5kg bags.

A growing dog's portion is a moving target, not a set figure. Every few weeks, read the bag's chart against how old your pup is and how big you expect them to get, then let the waistline confirm you have it about right.