Burns Grain-Free Puppy/Junior review

This one settles into our Good band, level with a typical puppy kibble, and transparency reads Outstanding while the other three pillars read Average. The arithmetic is easy to point at: potato at 47% shapes the analysis more than the 28% dried duck does, so protein and fat come in gentle while carbohydrate comes in high.

That is deliberate, and it is the house style. Burns build food to be digested easily and fed calmly, and for a pup whose stomach objects to richer bowls, the very thing holding the score down is the reason the food works. The label is complete, the meat is named and goes in dried, and the calcium figure is exactly where you want it.

Ingredients, as declared: Potato (47%), Dried Duck (28%), Buckwheat (12%), Duck Fat, Peas, Sunflower Oil, Seaweed, Minerals, Salmon Oil, Chicory Extract (Prebiotic FOS 0.1%).

Dried duck at 28% is all the animal there is, and the dried form matters. Its water goes before the mixer does its work. That 28% therefore survives into the bag much as printed, where a fresh meat headline at the same figure would lose most of itself in the oven. Duck digests easily and most dogs like the taste of it. It is also uncommon enough to be useful when chicken or beef has already caused a reaction.

Potato at 47% is the recipe's backbone and its main talking point. It is a clean, well tolerated starch, and it is why carbohydrate converts to an estimated 49.4% of dry matter while protein converts to 26.4% and fat to 13.2%. A pup with a robust appetite and a quiet gut can be fed more nutrient dense food than this. A pup with a sensitive one often does better here than anywhere else.

Buckwheat at 12% is worth a moment because the name misleads. Despite it, buckwheat is not wheat and not a cereal at all, but the seed of a plant related to rhubarb, which is why the food carries a grain free claim honestly. It brings fibre and minerals with it.

Duck fat gives the recipe its named animal fat and sunflower oil adds a light plant oil rich in vitamin E. Salmon oil covers the marine omega 3 that a puppy's brain and coat depend on. That salmon oil is the reason fish belongs on your allergy checklist even though duck is the only meat in the bowl.

There is not much else on the list, and what there is makes sense. Seaweed brings iodine and a spread of trace minerals, minerals cover the rest, and chicory extract delivers prebiotic fructo-oligosaccharides at 0.1%. Those feed the good bacteria a young gut needs. The additive panel is dosed in print, with taurine at 1000mg per kilo and chelated forms of copper, manganese and zinc, which tend to be absorbed more readily than the plain sulphates.

Calcium converts to 1.32% of dry matter. A large breed owner should check that number first on any bag written for every finishing size, and this label passes comfortably. Everything else on the analysis is declared: protein 24.0%, fat 12.0%, fibre 2.0%, ash 8.0% and moisture 9.0%, with only the energy line left to our estimate.

£7.50 a kilo, sold in 2kg and 6kg bags.

A puppy's ration is never fixed for long, so take the chart on the bag as the starting point for their age and their finishing size, then let condition guide you week by week.