Brit Care Grain-Free Puppy review

The Excellent band takes this food, a step up on the Good band the typical puppy dry food occupies. In other words it is comfortably ahead of the middle of its field.

Transparency reads Outstanding, with protein and processing and nutritional balance both Good. A single named fish at the front, a starch base holding carbohydrate to 36.1% of dry matter against a typical 39.0%, and a declared calcium figure are the planks under that reading.

Ingredients, as declared: salmon (55%) (dehydrated salmon, hydrolysed salmon), potatoes (26%), chicken fat, salmon oil (3%), dried apple pulp, natural flavour, brewer's yeast, 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), probiotic Lactobacillus helveticus HA - 122 inactivated (15x109 cells/kg).

Salmon at 55% comes dehydrated and hydrolysed. The water is out of the dried fish, so what reaches the bowl is close to the printed share. The hydrolysed part is salmon protein reduced to fragments the gut can absorb easily. Protein converts to 33.3% of dry matter and fat to 20.0%, a growth analysis built on the fish.

Salmon is also the one meat anywhere on the list. For a pup being kept to a single animal protein, that makes this a genuine option. The caveat above stands: chicken fat is a fat rather than a meat, but it still comes from a bird, and that matters for a formal exclusion plan rather than a simple preference.

Potatoes at 26% are the whole starch story. Cooked potato is a straightforward carbohydrate that digests well, and one of the standard grain free bases. The analysis backs the recipe up, with carbohydrate at 32.5% as fed, or 36.1% of dry matter, under the 39.0% typical for a puppy dry food. Dried apple pulp and pea flour sit behind it in small amounts.

Calcium converts to 1.33% of dry matter, a declared figure that sits inside the range building bone at a safe pace. That figure is what decides whether a growth food is being honest about the large and giant breed pups it lists, and this label prints it.

Salmon oil at 3% is the fat worth singling out, since the omega 3 it carries is the sort a young coat and nervous system make use of. Chicken fat supplies the rest of the energy, and the food comes out at 393 kcal per 100g against the 376 typical for a puppy dry food, so bowlfuls stay sensible.

Doses are printed right down to the bottom of the list. Glucosamine takes 300 mg/kg. Chondroitin sulphate and fructo-oligosaccharides share 230 mg/kg. Mannan-oligosaccharides and Mojave yucca take 180 mg/kg, milk thistle seed 110 mg/kg. Motherwort and sea buckthorn come in at 60 mg/kg, with the beta-glucans alongside them. An inactivated Lactobacillus helveticus culture rounds it off. Organic selenium at 0.18 mg joins a full vitamin and trace mineral panel.

Sold in 1kg, 3kg and 12kg bags.

A growing pup has no fixed daily amount, so read the weight band on the pack and keep revising as the weeks change the answer.