Icepaw Puppy Junior Pure 29/17 review

Our Good band is where this kibble comes to rest, level with the typical puppy dry food. Transparency reads Outstanding. Protein and processing settles in Good, and so do nutritional balance and value. No pillar is pulling the others down. Protein converts to 31.9% of dry matter and carbohydrate to an estimated 38.5%, near enough the 39.0% typical of a puppy kibble. The rice is doing about as much of the work as the fish.

Ingredients, as declared: Fishmeal (herring) 34%, rice 32%, rice flour 4%, animal fat, salmon oil 4%, dried beet pulp, linseed oil 0.20%, glucosamine HCL 0.01%, yucca schidigera 0.02%.

Fishmeal from herring at 34% heads the list, and it pays to decode what a dried meal means. The water is out before the weighing, so that 34% delivers more protein to the finished kibble than an equal weight of fresh fish could. The declared protein of 29.0% converts to 31.9% of dry matter, a respectable showing for a meal-based growth food.

Rice at 32% with rice flour at 4% behind it forms the carbohydrate base. Both are gentle, familiar grains that most puppies digest without fuss, though they do mean this bag cannot serve a grain free plan. Dried beet pulp adds a modest, well-tolerated fibre on top, with crude fibre declared at 2.8%.

Marine omega 3 arrives as salmon oil at 4%, with linseed oil at 0.20% for the plant form, both in the same bowl. That pairing suits a puppy whose coat and nervous system are still being built, and it sits on top of the oil the herring meal already carries.

One entry deserves a careful read from anyone running a strict exclusion diet. The animal fat names no species, so while herring is the only animal protein written on the label, the recipe cannot prove a single fish origin from top to bottom.

Calcium converts to 1.09% of dry matter, and that sits inside the growth range. It is declared on the label too, which a large breed owner wants to see before committing to a bag. Get calcium wrong and you have made the classic mistake in rearing a big pup, so a printed, sensible figure matters more here than anywhere else on this label.

The added panel is generous where it counts: taurine at 2000 mg, vitamin C at 200 mg and choline chloride at 960 mg, with a full vitamin and trace mineral run behind them. Glucosamine at 0.01% and yucca schidigera at 0.02% close the list, both at levels best read as a light touch. Energy of 369 kcal per 100g is our estimate, not a figure the maker declares, and it lands just under the 376 kcal typical of a puppy kibble.

£4.31 a kilo, sold in 400g, 2kg and 14kg bags.

A growing pup never eats the same amount for long: what they need climbs with age and then eases as the adult frame finishes. Weigh what the bag's chart says and let the waistline decide the rest.