Pero Super Start Premium Puppy review

Pero Super Start Puppy comes out in our Good band, the same band the typical puppy kibble occupies, settling a little under that typical mark. The pillars do not sit level: protein and processing reads Average, nutritional balance and value both read Good, and transparency reaches Outstanding. What keeps it steady rather than climbing is a small number of category terms sitting in the middle of an otherwise itemised list, and the notes below take those apart.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken 41% (Fresh Chicken 21%, Poultry Meal 20%), Rice 23%, Barley, Maize Gluten Meal, Oats, Poultry Fat, Chicken Gravy, Whole Egg Powder, Minerals, Yeasts, Malt Extract, Seaweed, Krill Meal, Salmon Oil, Camomile, Nettle, Parsley, Glucosamine 170 mg/kg, Chondroitin 80 mg/kg, Yucca Extract, Cranberry

The 41% chicken headline is broken into 21% freshly prepared chicken and 20% poultry meal. The water has already gone from the meal, so each percentage point of it yields more finished kibble than the fresh meat next to it. A declared protein of 30.0% is the analysis backing the front of the bag up.

The word poultry is quietly doing two jobs here. That 20% meal and the added fat both sit under it without naming a bird. For a pup that simply prefers chicken it is no trouble at all. It is a genuine limit when an exclusion diet has to be done properly.

Rice at 23% heads the starch, barley and oats sit behind it, and maize gluten meal is in among them. Gluten meal is a maize by-product used to lift a recipe's protein total. To a growing pup, grain protein is not the same proposition as protein from meat. Of everything here, this is the entry we would happily see drop down the list.

Past the staples the label turns generous. Whole egg powder brings protein a pup uses easily, and seaweed carries a wide mineral load including iodine. A growing brain and coat need marine fats, and krill meal with salmon oil supplies them. Camomile, nettle, parsley, yucca extract and cranberry close things out at seasoning level.

Joints get numbers rather than adjectives, with glucosamine at 170 mg/kg and chondroitin at 80 mg/kg. Both are modest doses, enough to count as a genuine inclusion in a food a pup will eat every day for months.

The analysis is declared in full, which not every growth label manages. Protein at 30.0% converts to 32.6% of dry matter and fat at 14.0% to 15.2%. The carbohydrate estimate lands at 41.9% of dry matter against the 39.0% typical of a puppy kibble, so the grain content is doing real work. The calcium line converts to 1.75% of dry matter. That is an easy fit for pups from toy through to medium size, and it sits above the level at which large and giant breed rearing is usually pitched. A big breed owner should take that figure to their vet.

£4.72 a kilo, sold as a trial pack and in 2kg and 8kg bags.

How much a pup gets through shifts every few weeks. Feed to the bag's growth chart and never settle on one scoop early. The bag's own guide starts at 30g a day for the tiniest pups and tops out at 450g.