Forthglade Cold Pressed Puppies & Small Dogs review

Our scoring gives this one a place in our Good band, the same company the typical cold-pressed food keeps, which is a solid result for a small breed food. Transparency comes back Outstanding here, protein and processing and value sit at Good, and nutritional balance reads Average. A named turkey lead, a printed joint pair and a fully published additive panel are what earn it. The arithmetic keeps it from climbing higher, with carbohydrate landing at half the dry matter and sweet potato with peas taking more of the bag than the meat does. Worth adding that moisture is not declared here, so the dry matter figures rest on the standard 8% a pressed pellet normally carries.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey 32.5% (17.5% freshly prepared turkey, 15% dried ground turkey)†, Dried Sweet Potato (26%)†, Dried Peas*†, Gelatine*, Chicken Fat*†, Dried Beet Pulp*†, Dried Fruit (2.3%: apples, pears, blueberries, cranberries), Brewer's Yeast†, Salmon Oil (1%)†, Dried Botanicals (0.6%: Fennel, Nettle, Dandelion), Mannan-oligosaccharide*, Egg Powder*†, Chicory Extract*†, Dried Seaweed*, Camomile*, Flaxseed Oil*†, Glucosamine (300mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (300mg/kg), Yucca Extract (0.02%)*. *natural ingredients. † ingredients thermally pre-treated prior to cold pressing.

Turkey at 32.5% is declared in two forms, 17.5% freshly prepared and 15% dried ground. The dried portion is where most of the protein actually arrives, since its water has already gone, and splitting the declaration that way tells you more than one headline number would. Turkey itself is lean and easy to digest, a shade lighter than chicken, and that is part of why it suits young and small dogs so well.

The added fat is chicken fat, and naming the bird beats the poultry fat entry some labels settle for. It does mean chicken is present even though turkey is the headline, so a dog reacting to chicken will not find relief in this bag despite the name on the front.

Carbohydrate comes from dried peas and dried sweet potato at 26%, with beet pulp for fibre and gelatine adding a collagen protein. Peas do real starch duty here, and in moderation they also give fibre and a useful spread of vitamins.

The tail is the one Forthglade uses across its pressed foods. Dried fruit at 2.3% covers apples, pears, blueberries and cranberries. Mannan-oligosaccharide and chicory extract feed the gut's own bacteria, and seaweed supplies iodine. Fennel, nettle and dandelion make up the botanicals at 0.6%. Yucca extract at 0.02% has a reputation for softening stool odour.

Glucosamine and chondroitin are printed at 300mg/kg each. Small breeds are more prone to kneecap and joint trouble than their size suggests, so finding both on a small dog food reads as a sensible formulation choice rather than a flourish on the packaging.

Protein converts to 26.6% of dry matter, fat to 13.0% and carbohydrate to 50.0%, which sits above the 43.2% typical for cold-pressed food. Energy is 328 kcal per 100g, a shade under the category norm of 351, so portions run slightly larger than the small pellet implies. There is no calcium figure on the label, the one gap in an otherwise well documented list.

£7.33 a kilo. Bags come in 2kg, 4kg and 6kg.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 840 kcal a day on the standard maintenance estimate (110 × bodyweight^0.75), which this food covers in roughly 256 grams, or £1.88 a day. The label's own chart is built for smaller dogs and gives 200 to 225 grams a day for a dog between 12.5kg and 15kg.