Country Pursuit Premium Puppy review

Our Good band holds Country Pursuit's puppy food, and it holds the middle of the puppy dry field too, with this one close to that middle mark.

Its transparency pillar reads Excellent, helped by an additive panel published with every dose attached, while nutritional balance reads Good and protein and processing Average. The reason is not hard to find. The energy and mineral side is well put together, but part of the protein comes from cereal and not from meat. Two figures a growth food is measured on, moisture and calcium, are left off the label.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken Meal (30%), Rice, Chicken Stock, Maize, Brewers Yeast, Maize Gluten, Beet Pulp, Fish Meal, Linseed, Milk Powder, Minerals, Chicken Digest, L-Carnitine, Yucca Extract.

Chicken meal at 30% is the backbone, and meal is worth understanding properly. It is chicken that has already been rendered and dried, so its water is long gone and that 30% carries through to the bowl close to as printed. A 30% fresh meat headline is a different proposition. Chicken stock and chicken digest behind it are there for palatability, digest being broken down chicken used to give the outside of a kibble a taste worth chasing.

The starch comes from rice and maize, and beet pulp handles the fibre. The interesting part is that carbohydrate still works out at only 35.8% of dry matter on an assumed 8% moisture, below the 39.0% typical, because fat sits high at 18.0% and protein at 30.0%. This is a dense, energy first kibble rather than a bulky one.

Maize gluten is the entry to know about. Maize processing leaves it behind, and it goes in to top up a protein figure. A dog cannot use that protein as easily as protein from meat. It sits below brewers yeast in the running order, so it is not the biggest thing in the bag, but it is why the declared 30.0% protein is not entirely a meat figure.

Fish meal and linseed cover the omega fatty acids between them, marine and plant, though the fish meal names no species. Milk powder adds easily digested protein and turns up often in growth recipes, and it is also why dairy appears on the allergen picture. Brewers yeast brings B vitamins, and beet pulp a gentle fibre.

The analysis is generous where it speaks. Protein converts to 32.6% of dry matter, fat to 19.6% and ash to 9.8%, with energy declared at 402 kcal per 100g. Ash at that level usually signals a well filled mineral package, which is exactly what growth wants. With no calcium figure printed, you cannot see how much of it is the mineral that governs bone. Moisture is undeclared too, so every dry matter reading here rests on an assumed 8%.

The additive panel is fully dosed: vitamin E at 154 mg, zinc at 278 mg, manganese at 94 mg, iron at 133 mg, copper at 28 mg and selenium at 0.55 mg in each kilogram. Natural mixed tocopherols do the preserving, which is the gentler route. L-Carnitine closes the list, where it plays a part in fat metabolism. Yucca extract sits alongside it, keeping stool odour down.

£5.30 a kilo, sold in 10kg and 2kg bags with a 300g sample size alongside them.

A growing puppy's portion answers to age and to expected adult weight, so no one scoop covers the whole of it. Start from the pack's own chart, then let your dog's condition guide the fine tuning.