Techni-Cal Lifestages Puppy / Junior review

This bag sits in our Excellent band, a step above the Good band the typical puppy dry food occupies. Nutritional balance and protein and processing both read Good, with transparency Outstanding. The headline analysis is respectable on protein and energy, and the label says a good deal for the job of growing a dog. There is a genuinely meaty opening to the ingredient list underneath all that, and the notes below give it its due.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated chicken, turkey and duck, wheat, maize, chicken fat, beet pulp, salmon oil (cold pressed), dried apple, brewers yeast, linseed, sodium chloride, fructo-oligosaccharides.

The recipe opens with dehydrated chicken, turkey and duck grouped as a single entry. Dehydrated meat has had its water taken out before it goes into the mixer, so the declared figure is not far off what the finished kibble actually holds. Three named birds at the head of a list is a better start than a category term. What the grouping takes away is the split. Nothing on the label says how much of that opening entry is chicken and how much is duck.

Wheat and maize come next and do the structural work every kibble needs from something. Maize is a perfectly digestible energy source once cooked. Wheat is the awkward one, since more dogs turn out intolerant of wheat than of any other cereal. Beet pulp follows further down as a moderate, well tolerated fibre, and dried apple adds a little natural sweetness and pectin.

Chicken fat carries much of the energy. Cold pressed salmon oil brings the long chain omega 3 fats a puppy's brain and eyes depend on. The label puts numbers on the fatty acids, printing omega 3 at 5.66g per kilo and omega 6 at 23.83g. Linseed adds a plant omega 3 on top of the fish. Brewers yeast brings B vitamins and a complete spread of amino acids in a small measure.

Sodium chloride is added salt, present as a palatability aid rather than a nutritional need, since the raw ingredients already carry sodium. Fructo-oligosaccharides close the list. They are a prebiotic for the bacteria in a young gut, and a food aimed at young digestions is exactly where you want that.

The analysis reads well enough on its own terms. Protein converts to 34.1% of dry matter, fat to 17.6% and carbohydrate to an estimated 39.5%, that last figure sitting right on the 39.0% typical for a puppy dry food. What is absent is the mineral picture. Ash converts to 6.6% of dry matter and there the detail stops, with no calcium and no phosphorus printed, and the maker's own additive panel published without a single trace element on it. For a growth food, and especially for a big pup, those are the numbers you would most like to have.

Sold in 2.5kg and 12kg bags.

The maker's feeding guide is written per kilogram of the pup's own bodyweight, not as a flat daily amount. It asks 50g for every kilo a pup of 1 to 3kg weighs, 40g per kilo from 3 to 6kg, and 35g per kilo from 6 to 12kg. Redo that sum at each weigh in and the portion keeps pace with the growth curve instead of trailing it.