Laughing Dog Naturally Complete Puppy review

Laughing Dog Naturally Complete Puppy settles into our Excellent band. The middle of the growth kibble field lands in our Good band, a clear step below it. Protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Good, with value Excellent and transparency Outstanding above them. This is a label that does the ordinary things properly.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (42%) (24% Chicken Meal, 18% Freshly Prepared Chicken*), Sweet Potato (35%), Rapeseed Oil, Chicken Gravy, Linseed (4%), Beet Pulp, Potato Protein, Botanicals (0.2% Seaweed, 0.15% MOS, 0.15% FOS, 0.135% Inulin, 0.01% Turmeric, 0.004% Marigold and 0.00008% Lutein and Zeaxanthin), Minerals. *Minimum 70% Fresh Chicken.

Chicken at 42% breaks into two entries, 24% as chicken meal and 18% as freshly prepared chicken. That split does more than it looks. Meal goes in dry, so its share survives the oven at nearly the level printed. Most of the water in the freshly prepared portion goes back off in the oven. Chicken gravy follows further down, named to the same bird, and the label footnotes the fresh entry as a minimum of 70% fresh chicken.

Read the list end to end and no second animal appears. The oil is rapeseed, the supporting protein is potato, and the botanicals are all plant matter. Raise a pup on one protein and this is a genuine option.

One big inclusion, sweet potato at 35%, keeps cereal out of the bag altogether. It brings a slower release starch with fibre attached, and beet pulp adds a little more of the gentle sort. Potato protein sits behind them, a plant protein that is nutritionally adequate without matching meat for quality, and it is placed well down the list rather than propping up the headline.

The botanical blend is declared to a level of detail you rarely see. Seaweed at 0.2%, MOS and FOS at 0.15% each, inulin at 0.135%, turmeric at 0.01%, marigold at 0.004% and a trace of lutein and zeaxanthin. The prebiotic pair is real if small, and the rest is closer to garnish than substance. Linseed at 4% is the more substantial addition, a plant source of omega 3 for coat and skin.

The declared analysis prints protein at 31.0%, fat at 15.0%, fibre at 3.0% and ash at 10.0%. Moisture is left off. The dry matter column on the table therefore assumes 8%, the usual for a kibble built like this. On that basis protein reads 33.7% of dry matter and carbohydrate an estimated 35.8%, comfortably below the 39.0% typical for a puppy dry food. Energy is declared at 370 kcal per 100g.

The figure a growth label most needs is the one missing here. Calcium is not printed anywhere. The bag covers puppies from toy right up to giant, so a big breed owner has nothing on the pack to check a rearing plan against. The added mineral panel is fully dosed, from zinc at 70 mg to selenium at 0.18 mg. The omission reads as a labelling habit rather than a gap in the recipe, and the maker will hold the number.

£5.00 a kilo, sold in 2kg and 7.5kg bags.

Growth portions are not a fixed number. They climb through the first few months and then ease back as the frame fills out. Start from the bag's chart, then let how your pup looks and feels decide.