Virbac Veterinary HPM Junior Special Large review

Junior Special Large is placed in our Good band, level with the middle of the puppy dry field. The nutrition would carry it further still. Protein at 38.5% of dry matter, a controlled fat level and a calcium reading of 1.21% inside the growth range describe a thoughtfully built large breed junior food.

The distance comes from how the recipe is described. Species are grouped and never named on either the protein or the fat, and part of the fibre is purified instead of whole. That is why protein and processing reads Good while the balance of the nutrition reads Outstanding. Owners who care most about the shape of the nutrition will find plenty here, and owners who need to know precisely which bird is in the bag will not.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated pork and poultry proteins; Rice; Peas; Poultry Fats; Lignocellulose; Hydrolysed pork and poultry proteins; Dried (sugar) beet pulp; Minerals; Fish oil; Linseed; Fructo-oligosaccharides; Psyllium fibre (Plantago (L.) spp.); Inactivated brewer's yeast; Inactivated Lactobacillus helveticus.

Dehydrated pork and poultry proteins lead, a single line covering a named meat and an unnamed group of birds. The dehydrated form is the reason the protein figure sits as high as it does, since drying removes the water before the ingredient is weighed. Pork remains a relatively rare meat in dog food, so it is a useful option for a youngster who has struggled elsewhere, while the poultry share cannot be pinned to a species.

The balance of the recipe is deliberately restrained. Fat converts to 16.5% of dry matter against a protein figure of 38.5%, fibre is raised to 6.0%, and the carbohydrate estimate reaches 30.8% where the typical puppy dry food runs at 39.0%. Rice and peas remain the only real starch, and the whole arrangement points at controlled, unhurried growth for a dog who has a great deal of growing left.

Calcium converts to 1.21% of dry matter and sits inside the growth range. On a large breed junior that is the number worth reading twice, because a big skeleton growing quickly is precisely where the mineral side is most easily overdone. Finding the figure printed, with no need to write off for it, is a mark in this label's favour. Ash converts to 8.2%.

Fibre is doing more here than in a standard growth food, and it comes from a mixture. Soluble fibre comes from psyllium husk and the everyday kind from dried beet pulp. Lignocellulose is the purified powder, adding bulk without much nutrition of its own. The prebiotic is fructo oligosaccharides. The digestive side is completed by inactivated brewer's yeast and by an inactivated Lactobacillus helveticus.

The panel behind all of this is dosed properly. Choline sits at 3000 mg/kg, taurine at 1500 mg/kg and vitamin E at 590 mg/kg, with iron at 260 mg/kg and zinc at 160 mg/kg among the trace minerals. Fish oil and linseed carry the omega 3 fats from marine and plant sources, which suits a young dog still laying down coat, brain and joints.

£6.17 a kilo, sold in 3kg and 12kg bags.

No single daily number works for a growing dog, because the amount follows age and the adult weight still to come. Read Virbac's chart first, then read your own dog and adjust as the waistline tells you to.