Harley & Marley Puppy Fish Cuisine review

Harley & Marley Puppy Fish Cuisine reaches our Excellent band, a step above the Good band where the typical puppy dry food settles. Transparency reads Outstanding, protein and processing and nutritional balance both come out Good, and value sits at Excellent, so the position comes from the whole label pulling in one direction. A fish share this high, a printed calcium figure that suits big pups and a declared moisture that lets the dry matter be worked out honestly is a lot for one bag to get right.

Ingredients, as declared: 71% Fish (5% Fresh Haddock, 25% Fresh Trout, 17% Dehydrated Trout, 17% Dehydrated Fish, 6% Fish Oil, 1% Fish Digest) Sweet Potato, Potato, Tapioca, Pea starch, Peas, Sunflower Oil, Minerals, Beet Pulp, Brewer's Yeast, Yeast Extract, Chicory Inulin, Yucca schidigera, Dehydrated Turmeric, Dehydrated Blueberries, Dehydrated Broccoli, Dried Spinach, Dried Rosehip, Dried Carrot

That 71% fish headline gets broken down properly, and not enough labels bother. Fresh trout at 25% and fresh haddock at 5% lead, dehydrated trout at 17% and dehydrated fish at 17% follow, and fish oil at 6% with fish digest at 1% completes it. The dried entries carry the most protein into the bowl, since nothing is left to evaporate out of them during cooking.

Just as usefully, fish is the only animal anywhere on this list. The oil and the digest come from fish too, so nothing else creeps in through the back door. For a pup kept to one kind of animal, that makes it a genuine choice. The one qualification is the 17% that is simply dehydrated fish, with no species attached to it.

Protein converts to 32.0% of dry matter and fat to 13.5%, both worked from a declared moisture of 11.0%. Carbohydrate converts to 35.9% of dry matter against the 39.0% typical of a puppy dry food. The starch share is lighter than most kibbles put in their base, before you even count the meat.

That base is sweet potato and potato with tapioca and pea starch behind them, plus whole peas. Tapioca brings little beyond starch, and pea starch is in much the same position. Read both as structure, not nutrition. Whole peas are a different matter and do bring their own nutrients. Beet pulp does the fibre work here, easy on most stomachs, and crude fibre is declared at 4.5%.

Crude ash at 12.0% as fed, converting to 13.5% of dry matter, is high for a kibble, and this is where the calcium comes from, because fish brings its bone with it. Calcium converts to 1.46% of dry matter, a declared figure that lands inside what growth needs. This bag is sold for toy pups through to giant ones, and that printed figure is what lets it hold the claim honestly.

The tail is a proper garnish list rather than a token one. Brewer's yeast and yeast extract bring natural B vitamins, and chicory inulin does prebiotic work. Blueberries, broccoli, spinach, rosehip, carrot and turmeric come at the end. Yucca schidigera appears too, an old inclusion that works on the odour at the other end.

Every dose in the added panel is printed. Vitamin D3 is at 1,900 i.u./kg and vitamin E at 230 i.u./kg, with vitamin A dosed above them. Then come taurine at 500mg/kg, iron at 75mg/kg, zinc at 70mg/kg plus a further 30mg/kg as a chelate, manganese at 40mg/kg, copper at 7mg/kg, iodine at 1.50mg/kg and selenium at 0.20mg/kg.

£2.33 a kilo, sold in 3kg and 12kg bags.

On the bag, the guide starts at 65g a day for the smallest pups and climbs to 540g for the biggest it covers. Portions for a growing dog shift month by month, so take the amount from the chart against expected adult weight and check the waistline more often than the scales.