Leader Puppy Large Breed review

Our Good band takes Leader Puppy Large Breed, and the middle of the puppy kibble field comes to rest there too. Protein and processing sits at Average with nutritional balance alongside it, while transparency reads Excellent and value Good. The shortfall is in the recipe, not in what the bag is willing to tell you. The reasons are easy to see. A growth food would usually carry more meat than this, and cereal takes much of the remainder. The panel also leaves out the calcium figure a big breed owner most wants in front of them. What the bag does offer is a plain, fully supplemented recipe with dried chicken at the head of the list, which is a perfectly reasonable place for a large pup to begin.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated Chicken (30%), Brown Rice, White Rice, Chicken Fat, Dehulled Oats, Whole Linseed, Minerals, Alfalfa, Hydrolysed Liver Protein, Yeast Extract, Chicory Inulin, Dried Cranberries, Dried Beetroot, Rosemary, Glucosamine Hydrochloride, Ginger, Turmeric, Chondroitin Sulphate, Yucca schidigera.

Dehydrated chicken at 30% is the opening entry, and dehydrated is the useful word there. Fresh meat is mostly water, so a fresh headline shrinks in the oven, while a dried one arrives already reduced and holds its share in the finished kibble. Chicken fat, named to the same bird, sits a little further down and does much of the work on the energy side.

Brown rice and white rice come next, with dehulled oats behind them, and between them they set the shape of the food. Carbohydrate works out at an estimated 48.4% of dry matter against the 39.0% typical for a puppy dry food, while protein converts to 27.8%. Young digestions handle rice easily, and cooked oats bring fibre with a spread of micronutrients, though there is no getting away from cereal being the bulk of this bag.

For a food written specifically for large breed puppies, the missing line is a notable one, because no calcium at all is declared. Skeletal growth in a big pup is more sensitive to calcium than to almost anything else on a panel. With no figure printed, there is nothing on the pack to check a rearing plan against. The mineral panel itself is dosed in full, so the maker will hold the number, and it is worth asking for.

The rest of the list reads like a well intentioned tail: alfalfa and yeast extract, chicory inulin as a prebiotic, dried cranberries and dried beetroot, then rosemary, ginger and turmeric. None of these carries a declared quantity, so treat them as seasoning with good intent. Whole linseed is the more useful of the group, a plant source of omega 3 for coat and skin.

Glucosamine hydrochloride and chondroitin sulphate close the list, and starting a large breed dog on both early is a sensible instinct. Neither carries a printed quantity here, though, so there is no way to judge the strength of either from the pack.

The added panel is where this label gets precise. Zinc is supplied twice over, as zinc oxide at 97.2 mg and as an amino acid chelate at 200.0 mg per kilogram. A body takes up the chelated form more readily. Iron follows at 250.0 mg, manganese at 65.0 mg and copper at 28.0 mg, with iodine at 2.4 mg and selenium at 0.3 mg. Selenium is sodium selenite here, the plainer of the two permitted forms. The fats are held with tocopherol rich extracts of natural origin rather than a chemical preservative.

Energy at 350 kcal per 100g is our estimate and not a figure the label declares. It sits a little under the 376 kcal typical for a puppy dry food, so portions run slightly larger for the same growing.

In 2kg and 12kg bags, at £3.33 a kilo.

No single daily amount fits a growing dog. A large breed pup's needs rise steeply and then taper as the frame finishes, so read the bag's chart against age and expected adult weight and work from there.