JosiDog Family review

JosiDog Family settles in our Good band, level with the middle of the puppy dry food field. Value reads Good here alongside nutritional balance and transparency, and protein and processing reads Average, which is a spread rather than a single problem area.

What holds it where it is can be read off the label without any arithmetic. A category name sits where the meat should be, and cereal does a large share of the work. No calcium is printed on a food sold for giant breed pups as well as toy ones. The analysis itself is sound enough, with protein converting to 31.5% of dry matter and carbohydrate to an estimated 40.1%, near enough the 39.0% the puppy field runs at.

Ingredients, as declared: dried poultry protein; whole grain maize; rice; poultry fat; beet fibre; maize protein; hydrolysed poultry protein; minerals

Dried poultry protein takes first place. Being dried, it carries its declared share through to the finished kibble largely intact, with no water to shrink away in the oven. Poultry is the catch. That word stands for four birds, chicken, turkey, duck and goose, with no promise of which one. The bird in the bag can vary, and an owner chasing a food reaction has nothing firm to hold.

Whole grain maize and rice come next and do the structural work. Maize protein then appears further down, which is where part of the 29.0% protein declaration comes from, since a cereal protein concentrate raises the number on the panel without adding meat. Beet fibre is the only fibre source named, a mild and generally well tolerated one.

The panel declares protein 29.0%, fat 17.0%, fibre 2.0% and ash 7.1%. Moisture is not printed, so the dry matter figures assume the 8% a dry food normally holds, which gives 31.5% protein and 18.5% fat. The maker declares energy at 392 kcal per 100g, comfortably above the 376 typical of a puppy dry food. This bowl holds more energy per gram than most growth kibbles do.

Calcium is the gap. Nothing on this label declares it, and calcium is the figure that does the most work in a growth food, especially where the pup will finish large. The range is listed for every size of dog, so an owner rearing a big litter would need to ask JosiDog directly for the number, since it is not printed.

The additive panel is where this label gives most, and it is itemised properly. Vitamin A at 24000 IU alongside the full B group, L-carnitine at 200 mg/kg, biotin at 1000 mcg/kg, iron at 200 mg/kg and glycine chelated zinc at 180 mg/kg all carry printed figures. The chelated forms of zinc and copper are more absorbable than the plain oxides many labels stop at.

One more thing worth noticing is what the feeding guide covers. It runs to the bitch through pregnancy as well as to the puppies. That is the whole idea behind the Family name, and a genuinely useful thing for a breeding household to have on the sack.

£2.67 a kilo, sold in a 15kg sack.

A growing dog's ration shifts almost week by week. Treat the guide on the sack as your starting point, weigh what goes into the bowl, and let the pup's own condition tell you when to nudge the amount up or down.