Leader Puppy Medium Breed review

Leader Puppy Medium Breed comes out in our Good band, level with the middle of the puppy kibble field. Its pillars read Good for protein and processing and for nutritional balance, with transparency Excellent and value Good alongside. That is the shape of the thing: a straightforward label that gives more than it holds back. Meat heads the list and the supplement panel is properly dosed, but cereal accounts for a large share of the bag and the calcium line a growth label really ought to print is absent. It sets out to be a plain, fully supplemented everyday kibble for a medium pup, and it is.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated Chicken (36%), Brown Rice, White Rice, Chicken Fat, Dehulled Oats, Whole Linseed, Minerals, Alfalfa, Hydrolysed Liver Protein, Yeast Extract, Chicory Inulin, Dried Cranberries, Dried Beetroot, Rosemary, Ginger, Turmeric, Glucosamine Hydrochloride, Yucca schidigera, Chondroitin Sulphate.

The whole recipe rests on dehydrated chicken at 36%, and the drying matters. Fresh meat loses its water in the cooking, and most of its weight goes with it, so a fresh figure needs an allowance made where a dried figure does not. Chicken fat sits a few places down with its species named, and plenty of labels do not manage that much with their fats.

Brown rice and white rice follow, with dehulled oats after them. Carbohydrate is an estimated 42.8% of dry matter against a 39.0% typical for the category, so cereal is doing real work. Rice is among the kinder starches for a young gut, and oats add fibre with a useful set of micronutrients. Protein converts to 31.1% of dry matter and fat to 16.7%, a reasonable pairing for a pup putting on frame.

The label prints no calcium. That carries less risk on a medium breed food than it would on a giant breed one. Growth is still the life stage where a calcium line earns its place on a panel, though, and with none printed the figure has to come from the maker.

Whole linseed brings plant omega 3 for coat and skin, and chicory inulin is a genuine prebiotic, working on the helpful bacteria lower in the gut. Alfalfa, yeast extract, dried cranberries and dried beetroot follow, then rosemary, ginger and turmeric, none of them quantified, so read that stretch as flavour and good intentions rather than a working dose.

The last two entries on the list are glucosamine hydrochloride and chondroitin sulphate. Owners with joints on their mind look for both, and starting them early on a dog that will carry a fair bit of weight makes sense. Neither carries a printed quantity here, so there is no judging the amount from the pack.

The added panel is itemised in full. Zinc appears twice, once at 97.2 mg as the oxide and once at 200.0 mg as an amino acid chelate. Joining it are iron at 250.0 mg, manganese at 65.0 mg, copper at 28.0 mg, iodine at 2.4 mg and selenium at 0.3 mg. Vitamins A, D3 and E all carry figures too, and tocopherol rich extracts of natural origin do the preserving.

Energy is our estimate at 360 kcal per 100g, not a declared number. That sits a little below the 376 kcal typical of the category, so the scoop is slightly fuller for the same growing.

£3.33 a kilo, in bags of 2kg and 12kg.

No puppy has a fixed daily scoop. Start from the bag's chart, matched to your pup's age and to the weight they will grow into, then let their waistline and their energy tell you whether to nudge it up or down.