Eukanuba Developing Junior Large Breed review

Our reading places this in our Good band, level with the typical puppy dry food and short of the tier above. The gap comes down to construction rather than care. The meat entries are named and sensibly ordered, so protein and processing reads Good and transparency Outstanding. A six grain base pushes the starch estimate well past what most growth recipes run, and nutritional balance comes back Average.

What the label does for a large breed junior, it does properly. Calcium is declared and in range, the analysis is deliberately moderate, and the prebiotics carry printed figures.

Ingredients, as declared: fresh chicken (20%), dried chicken and turkey (20% including chicken 14%, a natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin and taurine), wheat, maize, maize grits, barley, rice, oats, poultry fat, dried beet pulp (2.5%), chicken gravy, sorghum, fish oil (a natural source of omega-3 fatty acids), minerals (including sodium hexametaphosphate 0.33%), dried whole egg, fructooligosaccharides (0.24%, a natural prebiotic), brewer's dried yeast (a natural source of B-vitamins and selenium), mannanoligosaccharides (0.13%, a natural prebiotic).

Fresh chicken at 20% leads, and dried chicken and turkey at 20% follows with chicken accounting for 14% of that entry. Having already given up its water, the dried entry is the more concentrated of the two. Its equal share on the label understates what it actually fills in the kibble.

Eukanuba names that dried poultry as the natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin and taurine here. Cartilage and bone genuinely do carry all three, so the description is fair. No dose is printed for any of them, though, so read it as background support for a big dog's joints.

The middle of the label is where the starch lives: wheat, maize, maize grits, barley, rice and oats, with sorghum lower down. Barley, oats and rice do the most good of that group. They cook down easily and bring fibre and micronutrients along. Wheat is the grain most often tied to intolerance in dogs, so a junior with a delicate gut is one to move over slowly. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 49.1% of dry matter where the typical puppy dry food runs at 39.0%.

Calcium converts to 1.2% of dry matter and is printed on the panel, which on a large breed growth food is the most useful line there is. Nothing trips up the owner of a big pup more often than calcium, and a printed figure that sits inside the range removes the guesswork.

Protein converts to 27.2% of dry matter and fat to 15.2%, moderate figures that suit a junior growing steadily. Omega 3 comes from fish oil, and alongside the poultry there is dried whole egg, a small but very digestible protein.

The gut support is modest but real. Fructooligosaccharides at 0.24% and mannanoligosaccharides at 0.13% are both prebiotics, feeding the friendly population in the large intestine, and beet pulp at 2.5% adds gentle bulk. Sodium hexametaphosphate at 0.33% sits in the mineral mix and works on tartar, no bad thing in a food that gets eaten twice a day for a year.

Two entries stay vaguer than the rest of the list. Neither poultry fat nor chicken gravy pins itself to a single bird, and the 365 kcal per 100g figure is our estimate, since the maker declares none.

Sold in 12kg and 15kg bags.

The daily amount climbs for months before easing back as growth slows, so a junior's ration is a moving target. Weigh what the bag's chart asks for, then adjust to how your dog looks.