Brit Care Dog Sustainable Junior Large Breed review

This one climbs into our Excellent band, a rung above the Good band where the typical puppy dry food settles, and it gets there without a headline protein figure to trade on. The persuading is done further down the label.

Protein and processing and nutritional balance read Good, with transparency climbing to Outstanding and value at Excellent. The insect inclusion, the declared calcium and the printed supplement doses are what lift it, while the oat share is the part holding it where it is rather than higher.

Ingredients, as declared: chicken (38%) (dehydrated chicken, hydrolysed chicken), oats (28%), dehydrated insect (14%), dried apple pulp, chicken fat, natural flavour, brewer's yeast, salmon oil (2%), hydrolysed yeast (0.5% - a source of inositol and amino acids), pea flour, glucosamine (300 mg/kg), fructo-oligosaccharides (230 mg/kg), chondroitin sulphate (230 mg/kg), mannan-oligosaccharides (180 mg/kg), Mojave yucca (180 mg/kg), milk thistle seed (110 mg/kg), β-glucans (60 mg/kg), dried motherwort (60 mg/kg), dried sea buckthorn (60 mg/kg), Lactobacillus helveticus HA - 122 inactivated (15x109 cells/kg).

Chicken at 38% appears in two forms. Water is long gone from the dehydrated portion, so most of its share survives into the finished kibble. Hydrolysed chicken protein is the other half, reduced to pieces small enough to absorb easily and very hard for a puppy to refuse. Protein is declared at 28.0%, or 31.1% of dry matter, with fat at 15.0%, or 16.7% of dry matter.

Dehydrated insect at 14% is the entry that gives the range its name. As a protein it brings every amino acid a growing dog needs. Rearing it takes a fraction of the land conventional livestock does, and far less feed and water. To the dog it simply reads as another meat, and one almost no pup will have met before.

Oats do the binding at 28%. Cooked soft they are among the more digestible cereals, and they bring fibre along with manganese and phosphorus, plus B vitamins. Carbohydrate goes to 39.1% as fed, or 43.5% of dry matter. That is above the 39.0% typical for a puppy dry food, so this growth recipe leans on its cereal more than the meat headline alone suggests.

Calcium is declared and converts to 1.44% of dry matter, inside the window large breed growth wants, while ash at 5.7% keeps the wider mineral load modest. For a pup who will be carrying a lot of frame on young joints, that pairing is the most reassuring part of the analysis.

Every dose in the functional tail is printed. Glucosamine leads at 300 mg/kg, with fructo-oligosaccharides and chondroitin sulphate at 230 mg/kg apiece. Mannan-oligosaccharides and Mojave yucca sit at 180 mg/kg and milk thistle seed at 110 mg/kg. Motherwort and sea buckthorn each get 60 mg/kg, and so do the beta-glucans. An inactivated Lactobacillus helveticus culture finishes it off.

The marine omega 3 comes from salmon oil at 2%, and chicken fat carries the rest of the energy. That lands at 384 kcal per 100g against the 376 typical for a puppy dry food. The added panel runs from taurine and L-carnitine to L-tryptophan, with organic zinc, manganese, copper and iron behind them.

Sold in 1kg, 3kg and 12kg bags at £4.40 a kilo.

Nothing about a growing pup's appetite stays still for long, so use the weight bands on the pack as your guide and keep adjusting as your pup fills out.