Wainwright's Puppy Cans review

These cans finish inside our Excellent band. Wet puppy food scores strongly as a class, and its typical example reaches this band too. Holding a good position in good company is the achievement here.

Nutritional balance and transparency both return Outstanding, with value Excellent and protein and processing Good. The list shows why: one large meat share, a plant side named and quantified, and an analysis that matches the front of the pack.

Ingredients, as declared: Turkey (60%), Brown Rice (9%), Oats, Dried Peas (1%, equivalent to 4% peas), Dried Sweet Potato (1%, equivalent to 4% sweet potato), Dried Carrots (1% equivalent to 4% carrots), Minerals, Dried Seaweed (0.5%), Sunflower Oil (0.5%), Yucca Extract (0.02%), Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic Fructo-oligosaccharide) (0.02%)

Turkey at 60% is the whole story here, the single animal ingredient in the tin. No fish oil appears, no unnamed animal fat and no digest. That makes it a workable choice for a pup being kept deliberately to one meat rather than simply favouring turkey.

The starch is light but real. Brown rice at 9% and whole oats sit behind the meat, both cereals that cook to a starch a young dog handles comfortably, and both meaning this can will not serve a grain free plan. Carbohydrate converts to an estimated 20.0% of dry matter against the 13.6% the middle of the puppy wet field carries.

The vegetables are declared with their fresh equivalents, a small courtesy worth noticing. Dried sweet potato, dried carrots and dried peas each come in at 1%, all noted as equivalent to 4% of the fresh ingredient. Dried seaweed at 0.5% brings iodine and a broad mineral spread with it.

Sunflower oil at 0.5% supplies the added fat, one of the better plant oils in dog food. It is low in saturated fat and carries vitamin E naturally. The analysis converts to 32.0% fat and 36.0% protein of dry matter. That is the profile of a bowl built out of meat, not around it.

Prebiotic FOS comes from chicory root extract at 0.02%, with yucca extract matching it at 0.02%. Both are small, both named, both doing a specific job. The vitamin and trace element panel prints its doses. For selenium the form is sodium selenite rather than the better absorbed selenised yeast.

Ash converts to 10.0% of dry matter, a reasonable mineral load for growth, but no calcium figure of its own is printed. This can covers puppies of every adult size, and a large breed owner would look for that line first. Ask the maker before committing a big pup to it.

£4.64 a kilo, sold in a 6 x 395g pack.

What a puppy needs today is not what it will need in a month. Read the pack's chart, and let your dog's condition steer the rest. Wet food is fed by volume, and the guide starts at 98.8g a day for the smallest puppies, reaching 1580g a day for the largest.