Collards Puppy Salmon & Potato review

The three Collards puppy kibbles all land in our Good band, and this one sits level with its stablemates and with the middle of the puppy dry shelf. Transparency reads Outstanding with nutritional balance Good behind it. The reasons are on the label: one named fish and nothing else animal, percentages carried down to the marigold extract, and a declared calcium figure where large breed growth wants it.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon 44% (Fresh Salmon 28%, Salmon meal 16%), Dried Potato 12%, Whole Sorghum 11%, Whole Barley 10.5%, Potato Protein 8%, Whole linseed 4%, Sugar Beet Pulp 4%, Sunflower Oil, Monosodium Phosphate, Dried Alfalfa 0.8%, Natural Seaweed Meal 0.4%, Fructo-Oligosaccharide (from chicory root extract 0.25%), Sodium chloride, Potassium chloride, Methionine, Yucca extract 0.01%, L-Carnitine, Marigold extract 0.005%, Rosemary extract 0.005%.

Salmon at 44% is declared in two forms, 28% fresh salmon and 16% salmon meal, and the pairing is doing real work. Fresh fish still carries its water, most of which leaves during cooking, while the meal has already been dried, so the 16% contributes more finished protein than its share suggests. The analysis follows suit at 30.0% protein as fed, or 32.6% of dry matter.

More to the point, the whole list names no animal but salmon. The fat comes from sunflower oil rather than a fish or poultry fat, so nothing on the label brings in a second species by the back door. For a pup on a genuine elimination diet, that is the rare thing worth paying attention to, because most fish recipes are undone by an unnamed fat or a poultry digest further down.

Dried potato at 12% leads the starch, with whole sorghum at 11% and whole barley at 10.5% behind it and potato protein at 8% adding a plant protein. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 39.2% of dry matter, sitting right beside the 39.0% typical of puppy kibble. Sorghum is a gluten-free grain, though barley is not, so this is a lower-gluten recipe and not a gluten-free one.

Calcium converts to 1.47% of dry matter. It is declared on the label and it sits inside the range growth needs. An owner rearing a big pup wants exactly that printed. Ash sits at 8.5% as fed, or 9.2% of dry matter, and monosodium phosphate is named as the mineral balancer that keeps calcium and phosphorus in step with each other.

Whole linseed at 4% and sugar beet pulp at 4% split the fibre duty between a seed and a root. The trace minerals come from natural seaweed meal at 0.4% and dried alfalfa at 0.8%. Fructo-oligosaccharide from chicory root at 0.25% is the prebiotic. The list finishes with methionine, the sodium and potassium chlorides, yucca extract at 0.01%, L-carnitine, rosemary extract at 0.005% and marigold extract at the same level. The added vitamin and trace element panel is the only thing the label leaves unquantified, given simply as nutritional additives.

It comes as a 2kg resealable bag and as a 10kg bag.

Puppy feeding works in bodyweight steps rather than one fixed amount, and the bag's table ends at 215g to 430g a day for pups between 9kg and 12kg. Past that point your pup's growth curve and their waistline are the better guide, so keep weighing the bowl and keep adjusting.