Wainwright's Large Breed Puppy Dry Food review

This kibble finishes in the Good band, the same band the typical bag of puppy food reaches, so it holds its place in the middle of a busy field. Transparency reads Outstanding while protein and processing reads Average, with nutritional balance and value both Good. That is a fair account of the bag: the meat is named and split, the recipe is openly declared, and the analysis is solid without being remarkable.

The missing calcium line is what keeps a large breed specific food from making more of its own case. Everything else about the formulation points the right way for a big pup, and a printed figure would have let the label finish the argument it starts.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (36%) (Dried Turkey 31%, Freshly Prepared Turkey 5%), Rice (26%), Whole Grain Barley (11%), Rapeseed Oil, Maize Protein, Beet Pulp (4.5%), Whole Ground Oats (4.5%), Dried Peas (3% equivalent to 12.5% Peas), Linseed (2%), Dried Carrots ((1% equivalent to 8% Carrots), Seaweed (0.2%), Glucosamine (0.05%), Yucca Extract (0.02%), Chondroitin (0.015%)

Turkey at 36% is broken into dried turkey at 31% and freshly prepared turkey at 5%, and that split does you a favour. Dried meat brings no water with it, so its 31% reaches the bowl at very near the printed figure. A fresh meat figure shrinks considerably in the oven. Protein lands at 29.0% as fed and 31.9% of dry matter.

Turkey is also the only animal meat present. The list carries no fish oil and no animal fat under a generic name. Rapeseed oil is the added fat, low in saturated fat as plant oils are, and linseed at 2% brings plant omega 3 alongside it. The one caveat for an exclusion diet is that supplemental glucosamine and chondroitin are manufactured from animal material the label does not identify.

The base is traditional and unhurried: rice at 26%, whole grain barley at 11% and whole ground oats at 4.5%, all cereals that cook down to a starch a puppy digests comfortably. Carbohydrate converts to 42.3% of dry matter against the 39.0% carried by the middle of the puppy dry field. Maize protein sits among them, working on the protein figure and not on feeding a growing pup the way meat does.

Beet pulp at 4.5% and dried peas at 3%, noted on the label as equivalent to 12.5% peas, handle fibre and add a modest plant protein. Dried carrots come in at 1%, equivalent to 8% carrots by the label's own reckoning. Seaweed at 0.2% rounds things off with iodine and a wide spread of minerals.

Glucosamine at 0.05% and chondroitin at 0.015% are the entries that mark this out as a large breed recipe. Both are well regarded joint supplements and both appear at inclusions that read as a considered gesture rather than a clinical dose, which is a normal and honest place for a growth food to sit.

The added panel is dosed in print and stretches to taurine at 1000 mg per kilogram, a thoughtful inclusion in a big breed bag. What the analysis does not carry is calcium, and that omission matters more here than on any other kind of puppy food. The pace at which a large pup's skeleton mineralises is the whole reason large breed formulas exist. Nothing on the ingredients list suggests a problem; the number simply is not printed, and a large breed claim cannot rest on a figure that is not there.

£3.33 a kilo, sold in 2kg and 15kg bags.

Rations for a big pup climb steeply and then level off. Lean on the growth chart printed on the bag, and keep watching your dog's outline rather than settling on one number. At the lighter end of its chart the label's guide asks 255g a day, and 870g a day at the top.