Specific CPD-XL Puppy Large & Giant breed review

This lands in our Average band, a step below the Good band where the middle of the puppy kibble market settles. The why is worth spelling out. Protein and processing reads Poor because the recipe leads on wheat and maize protein with the meat share left unquantified. Transparency comes out Good.

What a band cannot show is intent. The moderate fat and energy are a deliberate choice for big breed rearing. The amino acid work and chelated minerals behind the list are the sort of detail a formulator adds on purpose. Our reading follows the label as written, and this label declares less than most.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, maize protein, fish meal, beet pulp, pork fat, animal protein hydrolysate, minerals, vitamins and trace elements (including chelated trace elements), egg powder, fish oil, lysine, psyllium husk, methionine, threonine, tryptophan, taurine, rosemary extract. With natural antioxidants (tocopherols and vitamin C).

Wheat opens the list and maize protein follows it, so the bulk of this kibble and a meaningful part of its protein come from plants rather than from animals. Wheat is an efficient binder and most dogs digest it happily once cooked. It is also one of the grains more often linked with intolerance. For a pup with a sensitive gut, that is worth knowing.

Fish meal is the named animal protein, and it is concentrated stuff, dried down before it ever gets to the mixer. No percentage sits beside it, so how far it stretches cannot be judged. The declared protein of 26.3% is the only measure the label offers.

Fat is the figure that separates this from most puppy foods. At 10.2% it is deliberately modest, and the declared energy of 364 kcal per 100g sits under the 376 typical for a puppy kibble. For a large or giant breed pup that is a defensible choice, since a big skeleton does better reaching adult size at a measured pace than at full speed.

Beet pulp and psyllium husk cover fibre from both directions. The fats are pork fat and fish oil, marine omega 3 among them, and egg powder brings in a little protein of a very digestible kind. Taurine is added by name here, joining lysine, methionine, threonine and tryptophan, each topped up one at a time.

Animal protein hydrolysate is the entry with nothing behind the name. Hydrolysates are broken into fragments small enough to slip past an immune response. That is exactly why they turn up in sensitivity work. With no species declared, though, a formal exclusion trial cannot be run on this recipe.

For a food built around big breed growth, the analysis is short of the two figures that matter most. Calcium is not printed at all, so nothing about skeletal mineral supply can be checked from the pack. Ash is missing too, which means this panel cannot be put on a dry matter basis and compared like for like. Protein at 26.3%, fat at 10.2% and fibre at 2.4% are declared as fed alongside moisture at 8.5%.

£4.95 a kilo, sold in 4kg and 12kg bags.

A giant breed pup's daily amount climbs a very long way over the first year. Let the bag's chart and your pup's expected adult weight set the portion, and revisit it as the months pass. The published guide starts at 110g a day and runs up to 960g.