Burgess Sensitive Puppy review

This food sits in our Good band, and the typical puppy dry food lands there too. It holds the middle of the field honestly: the meat is named and measured, the gut support is printed with doses, and the analysis is complete. Nothing here is alarming; it is the construction that holds it where it is, with cereal doing plenty of the carrying and a few entries left unnamed.

Ingredients, as declared: Rice, Turkey Meal (24%), Salmon, Poultry Fat, Pea Protein, Dried Beet Pulp (6.5%), Oat Feed, Minerals, Linseed (2%), Poultry Gravy, Fish Oil (1%), Dried Alfalfa (1%), Dried Seaweed (0.5%), Chicory Root Extract (as a source of fructo-oligosaccharides (prebiotic FOS 0.2%)), Yucca Schidigera (0.023%).

Rice leads the list, with turkey meal at 24% as the named animal content. Meal deserves its fair hearing. It is meat dried before it goes in, and that concentrates the protein well beyond what fresh meat gives. This one also names its species, and on a food sold for delicate stomachs that is the detail that matters most. Protein works out at 32.6% of dry matter, a healthy figure for a growth recipe.

Salmon sits third on the label, with fish oil at 1% and linseed at 2% further down, so the omega fats a growing coat and brain want are covered from more than one direction.

The gut package is where the Sensitive name earns its keep. Dried beet pulp at 6.5% is a well-tolerated fibre with a long record for firm stools, and chicory root extract supplies prebiotic FOS at a printed 0.2%. Yucca at 0.023% is the traditional inclusion for less pungent results. The additive panel is fully dosed too, and includes taurine at 1,500 mg, a heart-friendly extra that few puppy foods trouble to print.

Two entries read less prettily. Oat feed is a by-product of oat milling, more husk than oat, and it is here as workmanlike fibre rather than nourishment. The poultry fat and poultry gravy each do an honest job, energy from one and flavour from the other. Neither names its bird, and that is worth knowing if you chose this food to keep the protein list predictable.

Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 35.8% of dry matter, a little under the 39.0% typical for puppy dry food, so rice may lead the label but this is not a cereal-swamped bowl. The figure that most needs attention is calcium, at 2.07% of dry matter. Growing bones need calcium controlled as much as supplied. At that level the recipe suits small and medium breed puppies, while large and giant breed pups should grow on a food formulated to hold calcium lower.

£2.83 a kilo, sold in 2kg and 12.5kg bags.

Feeding amounts shift steadily through puppyhood, so portion from the chart on the bag by age and expected adult weight, and adjust to the body condition in front of you.