ROR Puppy review

Our Outstanding band is where this recipe lands, and the middle of the raw puppy field lands there too, so it is keeping the highest company we score rather than standing apart from it. It does clear that midpoint, and the label shows why. One named bird carries the great majority of the pack, the calcium source is spelled out instead of implied, and the plant fraction is small enough to stay out of the way. Protein and processing and transparency both read Outstanding, with nutritional balance a shade behind in Excellent.

Ingredients, as declared: Free Range Deboned Turkey 85%, Strawberry 4%, Sweet Potato 3%, Carrots 3%, Salmon Oil, Dicalcium, Seaweed, Yucca, Green Tea, Dandelion, Hawthorn Leaf, Beet.

One bird does almost all of it. Free range turkey at 85% is deboned, which means no bone in the grind, and dicalcium is the ingredient standing in for it. Naming that source is a real courtesy on a puppy food, since calcium is the nutrient a growing skeleton is fussiest about. The figure converts to 0.93% of dry matter.

Turkey suits this job well. It is highly digestible, it goes down easily with fussy young dogs, and it carries plenty of protein without the fat load of some red meats. Salmon oil follows it for omega 3 fats, which is welcome for skin and coat and is also the reason fish belongs on the allergen list.

The plant fraction adds up to a tenth of the pack and nothing more. Strawberry at 4% is an unusual lead for it, sweet potato at 3% brings gentle starch, and carrot at 3% brings vitamin A, with soluble fibre and natural antioxidants behind it. Seaweed, yucca, green tea, dandelion, hawthorn leaf and beet trail behind at trace level, with the seaweed the one worth registering as a source of iodine and minerals.

The analysis reads fat forward: 46.9% of dry matter against protein at 28.5%, and 198 kcal per 100g against the 155 kcal typical of raw puppy food. That is a deliberate build for growth, and it is the reason portions want measuring on the scales. Carbohydrate is estimated at 17.9% of dry matter against a 3.2% typical, which is largely the by-difference method sweeping up what the analysis does not measure directly.

A printed vitamin and mineral pack sits behind it, running vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, zinc, iron, copper, iodine and selenium. The selenium is supplied as inactivated selenised yeast, the organic form. Alongside the named dicalcium, that gives this label more of its micronutrition written down than most raw recipes bother to show.

Sold in 1kg packs. No checked per kilo figure was available for this recipe, so no cost figures appear here.

The feeding guide is set out by the puppy's current weight. It asks 250 to 300 grams a day for a puppy of 5kg and 500 to 600 grams for one of 10kg, rising to 1000 to 1200 grams at 20kg. Those are big portions, so start at the lower end of the band and let condition move it.