VetSpec Puppy & Junior Formula: Chicken Formula review

Our reading puts both recipes in the Good band. The middle of the puppy dry field lands there too, and these two finish a shade above it. They get there on a named animal leading each list and a starch that is declared rather than left vague. Transparency reads Outstanding across the pair, with protein and processing and nutritional balance behind it on Good, which is a label doing the fundamentals properly.

Neither recipe presses higher because of what the analysis leaves out, chiefly the calcium figure. The ingredient notes below set out where those gaps fall.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (26.2%), chicken meat meal (26.2%), potato (24.2%), chicken fat (6.2%), peas (4.6%), whole linseeds, sugar beet pulp, chicken digest as gravy (1.6%), fish oil, calcium carbonate, sodium chloride, culinary herbs blend (dried seaweed (0.2%), chicory extract as source of fructo-oligosaccharides (0.31%), yeast extract as source of mannan-oligosaccharides (0.08%), alfalfa, yucca extract, rosemary, fennel, basil, thyme, oregano, parsley, aniseed), taurine, DL-methionine, Lysine HCl

The two bags are variations on one design. One named animal opens each list. Potato follows as the only starch of any size, with peas, whole linseeds and sugar beet pulp behind it. Neither list carries a cereal of any kind, so both are genuinely grain free. Both are built for an owner who wants the animal on the front to hold good all the way down the list.

Potato is the engine room. Carbohydrate lands at 38.0% of dry matter in the chicken recipe, 40.7% in the salmon, either side of the 39.0% typical of a puppy dry food. Grain free here has not been used as a shortcut to a lighter starch load. Sugar beet pulp adds a mild and well tolerated fibre, and whole linseeds contribute plant omega 3 alongside a little more of that fibre.

Calcium carbonate appears on both lists, which tells you calcium has been added deliberately, but neither label prints how much ends up in the food. On a growth diet that runs from toy breeds to giant ones, that is the one number worth chasing down. Big breed rearing depends on getting it exactly right.

The culinary herbs blend is doing more than seasoning. Chicory extract is named as the source of fructo oligosaccharides and yeast extract as the source of mannan oligosaccharides, the two prebiotics you meet most often in a young dog's food. Dried seaweed, alfalfa and yucca extract sit alongside them, with a run of kitchen herbs from fennel through to aniseed. Naming the source of each prebiotic rather than listing the initials is the sort of habit that says a label expects to be read.

Fat is generous in both, converting to 19.8% of dry matter in the chicken recipe, 19.2% in the salmon. The amino acid additions are named too: methionine and lysine, and taurine with them. Energy is our own estimate on both bags. The chicken works out at 374 kcal per 100g and the salmon at 380, against the 376 typical of the category.

The chicken recipe splits its poultry evenly, fresh chicken at 26.2% with chicken meat meal at another 26.2%, and chicken fat at 6.2% with chicken digest as gravy at 1.6% for palatability. The starch is potato at 24.2% and peas at 4.6%. The fish oil supplies marine omega 3, which no bird can provide. As fed it reads 28.5% protein and 18.0% fat, converting to 31.3% and 19.8% of dry matter, with ash at 7.5%. This is the one to pick if your pup has always done well on poultry.

£9.12 a kilo for the chicken recipe and £9.25 for the salmon, both sold in 2kg and 12kg bags.

Neither figure turns into a fixed daily amount, because a puppy's portion climbs as it ages and as it grows towards its adult frame. Follow VetSpec's chart and let your pup's condition settle where you land. The chart starts at 40g a day for the youngest and reaches 375g at the top.