Nulo Baked & Coated Puppy review

Our reading places this in the Good band, level with the mark the middle of the puppy dry field sits at, with protein and processing and nutritional balance both reading Good and transparency Outstanding. The recipe is why: named meats at the top, percentages against the entries that matter, and a supplement panel with real numbers next to it.

What holds it short of higher ground is not what is in the bag but what the analysis leaves out. Moisture and calcium are the two places a puppy owner most wants a figure, and this growth food prints neither. That is a fixable thing, and not a flaw in the food itself.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh chicken (17%), dehydrated chicken proteins (17%), chickpeas, sweet potato, lentils, chicken fat, hydrolysed chicken protein, fresh turkey (4%), fresh duck (4%), minerals, linseed (2%), chicken broth (1%), pea protein, salmon oil (0.5%), dried carrots, pea fibre (0.5%), dried apples, autolysed inactivated yeasts, chicory inulin, coconut oil (0.1%), dried blueberries, dehydrated pumpkin (0.01%), products from the processing of herbs (Curcuma longa).

The top of the list is a neat pairing. Fresh chicken at 17% brings water with it, while dehydrated chicken proteins at 17% have already given theirs up. The percentages match, but the dried half does far more of the protein work. Behind them come fresh turkey at 4%, fresh duck at 4% and chicken broth at 1%. The declared protein of 30.5%, converting to 33.2% of dry matter, backs the meat billing up.

The starch comes from chickpeas, sweet potato and lentils, with pea protein and pea fibre at 0.5% in support. No cereal appears. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 36.4% of dry matter against 39.0% for the typical puppy dry food, so the legume base is not quietly taking over the recipe.

The fats are properly named, which is far from universal on a puppy label. Chicken fat is named by species. Linseed at 2% brings plant side omega 3, salmon oil at 0.5% brings the marine kind, and coconut oil at 0.1% closes them out. The allergen picture lists fish because of that salmon oil, even though every meat here is a bird.

This label is at its most generous in the additive panel. Vitamin E at 200 mg and vitamin C at 80 mg cover antioxidants, and DL-methionine and choline chloride are supplemented outright. Taurine is on the panel as an added ingredient. A gut flora stabiliser is declared with its live count printed in full. Tocopherol extracts do the preserving, so there is no chemical antioxidant here.

Now the two blanks. Moisture is not declared, so every dry matter figure on this page is worked from the standard 8% assumption a dry food normally sits at, and calcium is not declared at all. Ash at 9.0% tells you the mineral load is respectable, but ash is not calcium. A bag listed for breeds up to giant really ought to print the growth number that big pups depend on.

The tail is fruit and vegetable garnish: dried carrots, dried apples, dried blueberries, dehydrated pumpkin at 0.01% and a turmeric preparation. Pleasant additions, and rightly read as seasoning rather than as nutrition doing heavy lifting.

Sold in 2kg and 5kg bags.

Nothing about a puppy's ration stays still, so the chart is the tool to use week by week. Nulo pitches a 5kg pup at 117g a day and a 50kg one at 475g, with separate columns for the stages in between. Read across to the column for your pup's age and adult size, then adjust as they fill out.