Brit Care Hypoallergenic Puppy review

This one lands in our Excellent band, a step clear of the band the typical puppy dry food occupies.

Transparency reads Outstanding, nutritional balance Excellent and protein and processing Good. A single named meat at 46%, with the growth calcium printed in the analysis, earns the position. What keeps it from climbing is the rice share and an otherwise ordinary fibre and mineral picture.

Ingredients, as declared: dehydrated lamb (46%), rice (30%), chicken fat, salmon oil (3%), brewer's yeast, natural flavour, dried apple pulp, 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).

Dehydrated lamb at 46% is the whole meat story. The water is already driven off, so that figure holds up in the finished kibble far better than a fresh meat percentage of the same size would. The declared protein of 32.0%, or 35.6% of dry matter, backs it up. Plenty of dogs have never eaten lamb at all. That is part of why it turns up on labels written for sensitive pups.

Rice at 30% does the binding, and it is the gentlest of the everyday cereals for a dog with an easily upset digestion. Carbohydrate is estimated at 30.8% as fed, or 34.1% of dry matter, well under the 39.0% a puppy dry food usually carries, so the recipe is meatier than most of its class.

Calcium converts to 1.56% of dry matter, inside the range that growing bone wants, which is what makes the toy to giant labelling on this bag believable. Ash runs at 7.7%, a fair mineral load for a food built on dried meat.

The fats are chicken fat and salmon oil at 3%, the salmon oil doing the omega 3 work for coat and brain. Between them they are the reason the lamb headline needs its caveat: no other meat is on the list, but poultry and fish are in the bowl in another form.

The last stretch of the label is supplements with their doses attached. Glucosamine at 300 mg/kg pairs with chondroitin sulphate at 230 mg/kg for the joints. Gut bacteria get fructo-oligosaccharides at 230 mg/kg and mannan-oligosaccharides at 180 mg/kg. Then come Mojave yucca at 180 mg/kg and milk thistle seed at 110 mg/kg. Motherwort and sea buckthorn carry their own printed levels, and so do the beta-glucans. An inactivated Lactobacillus helveticus culture is last.

Energy comes in at 398 kcal per 100g against the 376 typical for a puppy dry food. The added panel carries taurine and L-carnitine alongside a full vitamin list and organic zinc, manganese, copper and iron.

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

You do not set a puppy's daily amount once, because it keeps moving. Follow the weight bands on the pack and keep checking the answer against the waistline.