Pro Plan Large Athletic Puppy Dry review

This kibble finishes in our Average band, a step below the Good band that the middle of the puppy dry market occupies. The reading is not about the promise on the front, since the energy and the added micronutrients are real enough. It is about how much of the declared protein arrives from wheat, soya and corn rather than from the bird. Nutritional balance reads Excellent, protein and processing and transparency both read Average, and the notes below show where each of those comes from.

Ingredients, as declared: High quality chicken (including back and chest) (19%), Wheat, Dried poultry protein, Rice (9%), Soya meal, Animal fats, Digest, Corn protein meal, Wheat gluten, Corn, Dried beet pulp, Minerals, Dried egg, Fish oil, Dried colostrum (0.1%)

Chicken at 19% leads. Back and chest are named as the parts used, and few labels bother to say that much. That is a rare piece of candour. It is fresh chicken though, so a large share of the 19% is water that leaves during cooking. The dried poultry protein sitting third does more of the durable protein work, under a name that covers any farmed bird.

Wheat in second place is the entry that shapes this recipe more than any other. It holds the kibble together and it carries starch. No cereal sits behind a grain sensitivity more often, and wheat gluten turns up again further down the same list.

Soya meal, corn protein meal and wheat gluten between them supply a substantial slice of the declared 32.0% protein. Plant proteins are not useless in a diet, but a dog draws less from them than from meat protein. A protein figure built partly out of them does not do the same work in a growing body as the same figure built from the animal.

Two entries on this list keep their sources to themselves, and they are the animal fats and the digest. The palatability coating is digest, a hydrolysed animal tissue laid over the outside of the kibble so that dinner gets eaten with enthusiasm, and it does that job well. Neither entry names a species, which is why so long a list of meats sits in the unclear column for anyone reading this label for allergens.

There is real care in the tail of the recipe. Dried egg and fish oil are both worthwhile inclusions, and dried colostrum at 0.1% is the maker's early immune idea. The added panel is fully dosed: 27000 IU/kg of vitamin A, 900 IU/kg of vitamin D3, 200 IU/kg of vitamin E and 120 mg/kg of vitamin C. Named traces run down to selenium at 0.13 mg/kg.

The analysis is the part big breed owners will study hardest. Protein at 32.0% and fat at 18.0% convert to 34.8% and 19.6% of dry matter, and the carbohydrate estimate of 35.2% of dry matter is lighter than most growth kibbles manage. What the panel does not carry is calcium. On a food sold for large breed puppies that is the one figure you would most want in front of you. Controlled calcium is the reason large breed growth recipes exist as a category at all.

Sold in 3kg and 12kg bags.

A puppy portion is never a fixed number for long. Use the guide on the pack against the weight your pup is expected to reach as an adult, and re-measure as they grow so that one scoop does not become the habit.