The Hunger Of The Wolf Puppy & Junior: Chicken (Large and Giant Breeds) review

The two recipes are not interchangeable on quality. Both reach our Good band, with the chicken one the stronger reading of the two, so which bag you pick still matters here. Since the typical puppy dry food also occupies the Good band, both recipes keep company with their field.

Nutritional balance reads Good on both recipes. Transparency is the chicken's weak point at Average against Good for the lamb, and protein and processing reverses that, Good for the chicken and Average for the lamb. The calcium declarations are what lift this range above others built on similar ingredients, because a printed, in range figure is exactly what a growth food should be offering and a great many do not.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken meal (29.5 %), maize, wheat, fish meal, poultry fat, rice, hydrolyzed poultry liver, flaxseed, coconut oil, MOS (mannanoligosaccharides), FOS (fructooligosaccharides), beta-glucans, glucosamine, chondroitin, feed additives (vitamins A, D3 and E, choline-chloride, biotin, chelated form of zinc and manganese, organic selenium, lysine, methionine, Enterococcus faecium).

Start with the calcium, because in a growth food nothing else on the analysis works as hard. The chicken recipe converts to 1.2% of dry matter and the lamb to 1.58%, both inside the range growing bones need. The lower figure on the large and giant breed recipe is deliberate and correct. A big pup laying down skeleton fast is the animal most easily harmed by too much calcium, so a large breed formulation should read lower than a general one. This one does.

Concentrated meat leads each bag. Chicken meal at 29.5% opens one and lamb meal at 20% opens the other. Meal is meat already rendered and dried, so what the label declares is what reaches the finished kibble, with nothing lost in the oven. Fish meal appears in both as a second animal source, and hydrolysed poultry or chicken liver is used in each as a natural palatability coating.

The starch side is conventional. Maize features in both and rice in both, with wheat in the chicken recipe only. Carbohydrate converts to 44.6% of dry matter in the chicken and to 41.3% in the lamb, against the 39.0% typical of a puppy dry food. That is a slightly heavier starch load than average. It is the trade these recipes make for opening with a named, concentrated meat.

The support package differs between the two but is thoughtful in both. The chicken recipe names MOS and FOS as prebiotics, with beta-glucans for immune support. Glucosamine and chondroitin go in for the joints, and Enterococcus faecium closes the list as a live gut culture. That is a well chosen set for a heavy framed pup. In the lamb recipe it is dried chicory for inulin and brewery yeast as a natural MOS source. Dried whole eggs go in too, with a run of plant extracts from rosemary to turmeric. Neither list carries doses, so these are named rather than quantified.

Two practical caveats sit over the analysis. Neither label declares moisture, so the dry matter figures use the standard 8% assumption for a kibble. Both energy figures are our estimates rather than declarations, at 360 kcal per 100g on the chicken, 367 on the lamb, against a 376 typical. The full trace element panel exists on the pack artwork but is published only in Spanish, French, German and Italian, which is why the mineral doses are missing from what you can read here.

Chicken meal at 29.5% opens this one, with maize and wheat behind it, fish meal as a second protein and rice further down. It is the recipe built for large and giant breeds, and its calcium converting to 1.2% of dry matter is exactly the restraint a big pup's skeleton wants. Glucosamine and chondroitin are named for joints, MOS, FOS and beta-glucans for gut and immune support, and Enterococcus faecium closes the list as a live culture, though none of them carry a dose. Flaxseed and coconut oil round out the fats alongside the poultry fat.

£2.71 a kilo.

The chicken recipe's guide is written by the adult size you expect. For a pup heading towards 35kg it runs 340g a day at 2kg of bodyweight, 650g at 6kg and 680g at 9kg. Separate columns cover pups expected to reach 60kg and 80kg. The lamb recipe covers smaller dogs, at 75g a day for a 2 to 6kg pup on track for 5kg and 115g from 6 to 12kg. Pick the column by the adult size first, then work down the rows as the months pass and your pup grows into each one.