Lifestage Puppy/Junior review

Lifestage Puppy/Junior earns its place in our Good band, right where the typical growth kibble comes to rest. Protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Good with transparency well clear of them at Outstanding, so the label itself is the strongest part of the showing. What lifts it is a recipe that names one animal and then breaks that animal into meal, fat, fresh meat and gravy with a figure against each, backed by a properly itemised additive panel. The gap, and it is the usual one on a growth food, is that no calcium figure is declared.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (43%), Turkey Meal (27%), Turkey Fat (9%), Freshly Prepared Turkey (4%), Turkey Gravy (3%), Brown Rice (20%), White Rice (20%), Oats (12%), Pea Protein, Linseed, Minerals, Lucerne, Fructooligosaccharides (Fos), Yeast Hydrolysate (A Natural Source Of Mos And Beta Glucans), Dried Seaweed, Yucca Schidigera, Dried Dandelion

The whole animal side of this recipe is turkey at 43%, and the label shows where that comes from. Turkey meal at 27% is the largest single part, and it arrives already dried, so that share travels into the finished kibble largely intact. The freshly prepared turkey at 4% has its water baked off. Turkey fat at 9% and turkey gravy at 3% complete the total, both named to the same bird.

Nothing else on this list came from an animal. The fat is turkey and so is the gravy, and the only other protein of note is pea protein. A household holding their pup to one animal gets the real thing here, not a food that merely leads with one bird. Turkey is also easy on most digestions and a common landing place when chicken has not worked out.

Behind the turkey sit brown rice and white rice, 20% apiece, with oats at 12%. Carbohydrate settles at an estimated 42.8% of dry matter, against a 39.0% typical for a puppy dry food. Rice is one of the gentler starches for a young gut and oats bring fibre and a good spread of micronutrients, but between them the cereals are a substantial part of the bag.

Two prebiotics work here, not one: fructooligosaccharides, and a yeast hydrolysate the label describes as a natural source of mannanoligosaccharides and beta glucans. Linseed supplies plant omega 3 for coat and skin, dried seaweed adds iodine along with a wide range of minerals, and lucerne, dried dandelion and yucca schidigera close things out at trace level.

The label declares protein at 29.0%, fat at 14.0%, fibre at 2.0%, ash at 7.0% and moisture at 9.0%, and then stops. There is no calcium figure, which on a food written for puppies and juniors is the omission that matters, since bone growth is the process most sensitive to getting that mineral right. The maker will hold the number, and it is worth a request, especially where a pup will finish at a big adult size.

The added panel is printed with figures throughout, from zinc at 100 mg and iron at 50 mg per kilogram down to selenium at 0.1 mg, with vitamins A, D3 and E all quantified. Energy is our estimate at 357 kcal per 100g rather than a declared number, a shade under the 376 kcal typical of a puppy dry food.

Sold in 1.5kg and 10kg bags, at £3.10 a kilo.

A growing dog's daily amount will not sit still. The chart on the bag is banded by age, so pick the band your pup falls into, then let the condition they carry guide the fine tuning.