GAIN Junior review

GAIN Junior sits in our Poor band, some way below the middle of the puppy kibble field, which falls in our Good band. The reason is not hard to find. Protein and processing and transparency both read Poor, and each of them traces back to the same habit: a composition written in category names rather than named ingredients.

Where the label does commit to a figure it reads sensibly enough for a growing dog. Protein at 28.0% is respectable, the calcium conversion lands inside the growth range, and the energy figure is close to the middle of the class. The description around those numbers is what keeps the food where it is.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, Meat & animal derivatives (min 20%), Chicken (min 4% beef), Vegetable protein extracts, Oils & fats, Derivatives of vegetable origin (min 4%), Sugar beet pulp, (min 20% Chicory FOS), Minerals, Seeds (Linseed), Fish & fish derivatives, Products from the processing of plants

Cereals head the list, and that one word covers everything from the best grains to the poorest. The wording is no proof of a poor ingredient in itself, and decent foods use broad terms to protect a recipe. It does mean the grain can move from one batch to the next with nothing on the bag to tell you.

The animal content follows as meat and animal derivatives at a declared minimum of 20%, with chicken named and beef mentioned alongside it, and fish and fish derivatives appear further down. Those entries cover the meat in the bag between them, given by category and with no species share attached. For most pups that simply means knowing less than you might like. For a pup with a suspected intolerance it matters a great deal more, because you cannot isolate what has never been named.

In the middle of the list come vegetable protein extracts and derivatives of vegetable origin. Meat gives a growing dog an amino acid profile that plant proteins do not match, so their presence shapes how much of that declared 28.0% is doing full-value work. Sugar beet pulp is an easily tolerated fibre, with linseed adding plant omega 3 beside it.

The brightest entry on the list is the chicory FOS. Fructo-oligosaccharide is a prebiotic. It feeds the helpful bacteria a dog already carries in its large intestine, and chicory root is where it usually comes from. In a food aimed at young digestions that is a genuinely useful thing to find.

Protein at 28.0%, fat at 16.0%, fibre at 2.5% and ash at 7.5% are declared as fed. Moisture is not, so the dry matter figures shown work from the 8% standard assumed for a dried food. On that basis protein reads 30.4%, fat 17.4% and carbohydrate an estimated 41.3% of dry matter, close to the 39.0% typical of the class.

On the same basis calcium converts to 1.63% of dry matter. That is inside the range a growing dog needs, and well matched to a small or medium breed pup. It runs above where large and giant breed feeding plans usually settle. If your pup is going to be a big one, put it to your vet. Energy is our own estimate, at 367 kcal per 100g, since the label declares none.

Sold in 3kg bags.

How much of that bag a pup gets through changes every few weeks, because a growing dog eats towards the size they are becoming rather than the size they are. Start from the guide on the pack, weigh the portion out properly, and step it up or back as your pup's shape asks.