ProDog Complete Raw Puppy Food: Pork & Lamb review

Raw sets a high bar with us because the format starts from named meat, and the midpoint of the raw puppy field already occupies our Outstanding band. These five sit comfortably in that band, with protein and processing, nutritional balance and transparency all reading Outstanding, and value reading Outstanding alongside them. The Chicken and Tripe edges the range by a nose, though the gaps are small enough that a puppy's own tolerance is a better guide than the ranking.

Ingredients, as declared: 50% British Pork Meat (Includes approx 10% ground pork bone), 25% British Lamb Tripe, 15% Pork Heart (Offal), 8.48 % Seasonal British Vegetables and Berries (3.48% leafy greens, 4% carrots, 1% blueberries), 1% Ground Pumpkin Seeds, 0.02% Wheatgrass, 0.2% Irish Kelp, 0.3% Atlantic Salmon Oil

Every recipe follows one shape. A named British meat with roughly 10% ground bone leads, and organ meats come next at declared percentages. Then a modest share of seasonal vegetables and berries, ground pumpkin seeds, wheatgrass, Irish kelp and Atlantic salmon oil to close. Set against the adult range the vegetable share is smaller and the offal larger, which is the sensible direction of travel for a growing dog.

Ground bone is the calcium source, running at around 10% of the meat in most recipes and counted inside the pork percentage in the Pork and Lamb. The one figure missing is calcium. That is the number owners look for first on a puppy food, and it matters more with a large breed, where the growth window is fussier about mineral balance. The bone is plainly there in the composition; the label simply does not say what it delivers.

Every organ meat here comes with a figure beside it. Liver appears in four of the five at 5% or 6%, kidney joins it in the Beef and Chicken, and the Pork and Lamb takes a different route with 15% pork heart. Liver is the densest natural store of vitamin A and iron a recipe can carry, and the B vitamins come with it. Heart is lean muscle with taurine in it, so between them they cover a good deal of the ground a premix would otherwise be asked to cover.

Ground pumpkin seeds are the notable puppy addition, at 3.5% in four of the five and 1% in the Pork and Lamb, bringing fibre and zinc along with plant fats. The vegetable and berry share runs from 7% to 10%, itemised right down to the blueberries at 1%. Wheatgrass, Irish kelp and salmon oil close each list. They bring greens and iodine, plus the long chain omega 3 fats. It is a whole food approach to micronutrition, stated openly by the maker, with no additives panel published behind it.

The analyses read as raw should for growth. Protein converts to between 36.4% and 52.1% of dry matter and fat to between 21.4% and 37.2%, with carbohydrate all but absent in most recipes and never above 13.8%. Where a carbohydrate figure appears at all, it is an estimate of what the analysis leaves unmeasured. No cereal or pulse features in any of the five.

Pork at 50% with around 10% ground pork bone, lamb tripe at 25% and pork heart at 15%, the only recipe here using heart in place of liver. Protein converts to 47.6% of dry matter and crude ash reads 16.1%, the highest in the range. With neither chicken nor beef on the label it is the natural landing spot for a puppy steering round the usual proteins.

Per kilo, the Chicken and the Chicken and Tripe are £5.60, the Beef and Chicken and the Turkey and Haddock are £6.20, and the Pork and Lamb is £6.44. Packs are 500g, with the Chicken and Tripe also sold as a 1kg.

We have not put a daily figure against this range. On several of these recipes the declared energy content does not sit comfortably with their own analyses. What a growing puppy needs shifts from week to week in any case. Start from the maker's puppy feeding guide and adjust it as your puppy fills out.