Calibra Verve Puppy & Junior Cans review

This can earns its place in our Excellent band on construction rather than on any single flourish: named meat at the front, no cereal behind it, protein and processing reading Excellent and nutritional balance Outstanding. Wet is a strong shelf on our scoring, so the typical adult wet food sits in the Excellent band too, and Calibra finishes comfortably clear of that middle mark. What is left reads Outstanding for transparency, with value Excellent.

Ingredients, as declared: turkey (44 %), lamb (26 %), apple (4 %), vegetable derivatives (2.7 %), salmon oil (1.5 %), dried Ascophyllum nodosum (1 %), dried rose hip (0.5 %), dried cranberries (0.5 %), dried sea buckthorn (0.5 %), dried oregano (0.05 %), dried thyme (0.05 %).

Turkey leads at 44% with lamb at 26% behind it, and those two entries do nearly all the work. Protein converts to 43.2% of dry matter and fat to 29.5%, a properly meat-led reading for something fed out of a can. Energy density comes in at 104 kcal per 100g, and a growing dog will use it.

The plant side is deliberately slight. Apple at 4% and a 2.7% vegetable entry are the only real bulk. With no cereal on the list, the estimated carbohydrate lands at 15.9% of dry matter, all but level with the 15.8% typical of adult wet food. That estimate comes by difference rather than measurement, and the method tends to read a shade high on wet recipes.

Then come the finishing touches: dried Ascophyllum nodosum at 1%, a seaweed that brings iodine and trace minerals, with rose hip, cranberry and sea buckthorn at 0.5% each and oregano and thyme at 0.05%. All of it is seasoning-scale. What you are buying is meat, and the analysis backs that up.

Calcium converts to 1.36% of dry matter, which is where a growth recipe wants to be, and it clears the tighter bar a large breed puppy needs. Taurine is added at a dose you can see on the panel. Carob gum is what gives the loaf its set. The vitamin and mineral list is short and printed with figures beside it. Much of the micronutrition in this recipe comes from the meat itself.

£7.12 a kilo, in 400g cans sold in packs of 6.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at about £5.74 a day, which is roughly 806 grams, assuming maintenance of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). A growing puppy eats a good deal more than that for its size, so treat the figure as the adult end of the scale.