Gelert Country Choice Performance Puppy review

Good is where our bands place this one, level with the typical adult dry food, and most of what shapes it comes from the analysis rather than from the shopping list. Protein reaches 34.8% of dry matter while carbohydrate stops at 34.7%, an unusually light plant load for a recipe with cereal in it. The meat meal and the two plant proteins are sharing the work between them. Protein and processing reads Average, held there by the unnamed fat and the refined plant proteins, while nutritional balance reaches Excellent and a fully printed additive panel takes transparency to Outstanding.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken Meat Meal (27%), White Rice (15%), Poultry Fat (11%), Pea Protein (8.5%), Barley, Fresh Chicken (6%), Potato Protein (5%), Potato Starch, Sugar Beet Pulp (5%), Dried Brewer's Yeast (2.5%), Linseed (2.5%), Chicken Liver Digest (1.5%), Minerals, Seaweed Meal, Prebiotic MOS (Mannan-Oligosaccharide), Yucca Extract (500 mg/kg), Glucosamine (400 mg/kg), Chondroitin (285 mg/kg), Cranberry (100 mg/kg).

The list opens with chicken meat meal at 27%. Fresh chicken at 6% and chicken liver digest at 1.5% come further down for taste. A meal is dried meat, so that 27% does real work in the finished kibble and very little of it leaves as steam in the oven. The liver digest is the entry that keeps a young appetite interested.

Poultry fat at 11% is the single biggest reason this food is as rich as it is. It is an unremarkable ingredient in itself and dogs love it. Poultry is a family and not a species, though, so that fat could come from any bird while the meat above it is plainly chicken.

Pea protein at 8.5% and potato protein at 5% are refined plant proteins, and they are a good part of why the protein figure reads as high as it does. They raise the total without adding meat, and a dog makes less of plant protein than of the animal kind, so weigh the 32.0% with that in mind.

White rice at 15% and barley take care of the cereal side, potato starch does the binding, and sugar beet pulp at 5% brings the fibre. Carbohydrate stops at 34.7% of dry matter, well under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food, which is unusual for a recipe that still has grain in it.

The additive panel is printed in full and it reads well. Zinc arrives twice, as a chelate of amino acid hydrate at 333 mg and as zinc sulphate at 194 mg per kilo. Iron follows at 100 mg, manganese at 78 mg, copper at 40 mg, calcium iodate at 2.45 mg and selenised yeast at 87 mg. Vitamin E is dosed at 245 IU. A chelated mineral is generally the better absorbed form, so seeing one on a food aimed at growth is a good sign.

Linseed at 2.5% supplies the plant omega 3, brewer's yeast at 2.5% brings B vitamins and a complete protein of its own, seaweed meal adds iodine, and mannan oligosaccharides sit in as the prebiotic. Yucca extract at 500 mg/kg and cranberry at 100 mg/kg close the list.

£3.14 a kilo, sold in a 12kg bag.

Measured as an adult food, a 15kg dog in moderate condition would eat roughly 218 grams a day on the standard maintenance estimate of 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). That works out at £0.68 a day. A growing puppy eats a good deal more than a grown dog of the same weight, so lean on the label's own growth guide while your dog is still filling out.