Pets at Home Complete Nutrition Dry Puppy review

This kibble comes out in our Average band, a step under the Good band a typical puppy dry food occupies. Nutritional balance and transparency read Average, protein and processing Poor. The placing is about naming and not nutrition: we reward a label that says what is actually in the bag, and a recipe of six broad headings tells an owner very little. The declared analysis and the calcium figure are the parts pulling hardest in its favour, and both are set out below.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, Meat and Animal Derivatives (28% including 4% Chicken), Derivatives of Vegetable Origin, Oils and Fats, Vegetables (1.3% Dried Peas, equivalent to 4% Peas), Minerals.

Cereals opens the recipe, which tells you it is grain based without telling you which grain. That heading stretches from a good whole grain at one end to a milling by-product at the other, and because nothing is pinned down the source can move between production runs. For a pup with no known sensitivities that is workable enough. For one whose trigger you are trying to find, it is a dead end.

The animal content is declared at 28%, of which 4% is named as chicken and the balance stays under the heading. The category legally covers everything from good carcase meat to the plainest parts of it, so there is no reading from outside where a given batch sits within it. Chicken is the meat the trade reaches for most, and there is good reason for that: it is palatable and sits easily on most young digestions.

Derivatives of vegetable origin and oils and fats follow the same style, each naming a class rather than an ingredient. The vegetable line is the one place the label gets specific: 1.3% dried peas, noted as the equivalent of 4% peas. Whole peas do carry fibre along with a decent range of micronutrients.

The analysis reads more plainly than the ingredients list. Protein at 27.0% and fat at 11.0% are modest for growth but real, crude ash sits at 6.0%, and the estimated carbohydrate of 52.2% confirms a recipe leaning on its grain for bulk. Energy comes in at 365 kcal per 100g, near enough the 376 a puppy kibble typically carries.

One figure needs a caveat before anyone converts it. Moisture is declared at 0.8%, well under what a kibble normally holds. That puts the dry matter column almost on top of the as fed one, so comparisons drawn from it against other foods will not be fair. The as fed figures above are the ones to work with here.

In a growth food no number matters more than calcium. Here it converts to 1.51% of dry matter, inside the range large breed rearing is planned around. The label puts this food in front of everything from toy to large breed pups, and on this figure that claim holds up, which is more than several better dressed puppy labels manage.

The added vitamin and mineral panel is dosed properly and printed in full. Vitamins A, D3 and E are all declared, with E at 70mg per kilogram, and methionine is added to shore up the amino acid profile. The trace elements run from zinc at 100mg and iron at 60mg down to selenium at 0.10mg.

£1.04 a kilo taking the 12kg bag, with a 2kg bag also sold.

Portions climb through the fastest months and ease back as growth slows. Weigh what you give against the chart on the bag, and against how easily you can feel your pup's ribs.