Fish4Dogs Working Dog Puppy: White Fish review

The two sacks finish in the same band. Each reaches our Good band, level with where the typical puppy dry food comes to rest, with the salmon at the top end of it and the white fish around the middle. The gap between them is narrow, and it comes down to how each headline is built, since the analysis is identical on both. Value and transparency both read Outstanding either way. Protein and processing is the pillar that separates the two sacks: Average on the white fish, Good on the salmon.

Ingredients, as declared: White Fish (27%), Potato (20%), Pea Starch, Salmon Meal (16%), Salmon Oil (10%), Beet Pulp, Brewers Yeast, Sunflower Oil, Minerals.

Fish comes in from two directions in each recipe: a named fresh fish opening the list, then salmon meal a few entries down. The two forms complement each other. Fresh fish gives up weight in the oven, and the dried meal carries its protein into the kibble intact. Protein is declared at 30.0% on both bags, and both take their added fat from salmon oil with sunflower oil behind it.

Moisture is the missing line, so the dry matter figures for this range rest on the standard 8% assumption. Read on that basis, protein comes out at 32.6% of dry matter, fat at 15.2% and carbohydrate at 42.1%, the last of those above the 39.0% typical of a puppy dry food. They are sound working figures, but they are an estimate rather than something the label has confirmed.

Pea starch and a root vegetable do the binding, so no cereal appears on either list. Fibre comes from beet pulp, which most dogs tolerate easily. Brewers yeast supplies B vitamins, plus a protein holding all nine of the amino acids a dog cannot make for itself. Ash is declared at 7.0%, which converts to 7.6% on that same assumed moisture.

Calcium is not printed on either sack. No figure works harder on a growth food. A large or giant breed pup's skeleton is being built quickly, and the mineral level shapes how quickly. Ask the maker for it if a big pup is being reared on this food.

The added list is brief and precise: vitamins A, D3 and E, taurine at 1 g per kilo and iodine at 1.6 mg per kilo. Freshness is held by tocopherol rich extracts, with no chemical preservative involved. Taurine is an amino acid most dogs manufacture for themselves, so putting it in outright is a thoughtful addition rather than a necessary one. Everything else on the mineral side sits behind the minerals entry on the recipe.

White fish at 27% leads this recipe, followed by potato at 20%, pea starch, salmon meal at 16% and salmon oil at 10%. Two fish share this sack, and the larger oil share is the visible difference on the list, though both recipes end up declaring exactly the same analysis.

£3.27 a kilo on both recipes, sold in a single 15kg sack.

A growing dog's ration keeps moving. It climbs through the early months and eases as the pup approaches its adult frame. Work from the chart on the sack, then let the ribs and the waist tell you when to change it.