Optimum Pet Health Puppy Cans review

This tin holds a place in our Excellent band. The middle of the wet puppy shelf already sits there, and that shelf is a strong one, so the placing counts for something. Transparency and nutritional balance both read Outstanding, while value sits at Excellent alongside protein and processing. What holds it up is the analysis: a very high meat share, almost nothing standing in for it, and a protein figure that would look respectable on a dry food once converted.

Ingredients, as declared: 68442back.jpg (served on the Puppy TRAYS PDP under the filename 68442_oph_pup_mp_ckn_12x395g_...03 68601b2.jpg + hi68601b3.jpg, the single 395g tin's own wrap label, which prints the identical panel)_: Chicken (62%), dried Antarctic krill (1%) (a natural source of DHA), minerals, dried Curcuma longa (turmeric) (0.1%), glucosamine hydrochloride (0.03%), Yucca schidigera, MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane) (0.02%), chondroitin sulphate (0.01%), dried Melissa officinalis (0.01%), dried Thymus vulgaris, dried fenugreek, olive powder, dried rosehip (0.005%), tyndallized Lactobacillus helveticus (0.001%).

Chicken at 62% is effectively the entire recipe, and the analysis reflects that. Protein of 9.5% as fed converts to 41.3% of dry matter and fat of 7.0% to 30.4%. Moisture is declared at 77.0%, so those conversions run off a printed figure and not an assumption. That is a meat-shaped analysis by any measure.

What is absent from the list says as much as what is on it. There is no rice, no potato and no cereal, nothing at all brought in to bulk the tin out. The carbohydrate figure of 13.1% of dry matter is our estimate, worked out by difference because no ingredient declares it. It lands almost exactly on the 13.6% typical of a wet puppy food.

The one other substantial entry is dried Antarctic krill at 1%, and it is well chosen. Krill is a natural source of DHA, the long chain omega 3 that a puppy's brain and eyes are built from during the first months. It is also why fish belongs in the allergen picture, with chicken the only meat here.

Calcium comes out at 1.3% of dry matter, sitting inside the range growth should be reared to. That is the check worth doing before any tin becomes the main food of a pup destined to finish large. Ash converts to 10.9% of dry matter, the mineral load a rapidly building skeleton draws on.

The joint entries carry doses, which is more than most tins bother with: glucosamine hydrochloride at 0.03%, MSM at 0.02% and chondroitin sulphate at 0.01%. Read them as an early and gentle nod, not a working programme.

The tail is a herb garden in miniature. Turmeric at 0.1% leads it, then yucca, melissa at 0.01%, thyme, fenugreek, olive powder, rosehip at 0.005% and a tyndallised Lactobacillus helveticus at 0.001%. All of it is at seasoning level, and none of it is carrying the recipe.

The one line this label does not open up is minerals, listed as a single word with no breakdown of the vitamins and trace elements behind it. On a pack this short and this frank everywhere else, it is the entry you might most wish had been written out in full.

£4.22 a kilo, in a single 395g can or a 12 x 395g multipack.

Portions in the first year climb steeply and then level off. Work from the growth chart for your pup's age and expected size, and let their waistline settle the final call.