Sneyd's Wonderdog Wonderdog Premium Puppy Chicken & Rice review

Our Good band is where this food finishes, and the middle of the puppy kibble market finishes there too. It keeps company with the mainstream. It settles a shade under that middle mark.

Transparency reads Excellent, nutritional balance and value both Good, protein and processing Average. That is a fair summary: the label is open, and what it declares is a competent cereal-based recipe and not a meat-heavy one.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken Meal 32.69%, White Rice 26%, Maize 25%, Poultry Fat 7%, Beet Pulp 5%, Linseed 2.5%, Fish Meal 1%, Prem Puppy Supp 0.8% 0.8%, Chicory 0.01%

The list opens with chicken meal at 32.69%, and meal is a helpful form to see at the top. Its water has been driven off before mixing, so the share printed on the bag carries through to the finished kibble without shrinking in the oven. Declared protein of 27.0% converts to 29.3% of dry matter on the 8% moisture we assume when a label leaves it off.

The bulk of the carrying falls to white rice at 26% and maize at 25%, with beet pulp at 5% behind them for fibre. Carbohydrate works out at 46.8% of dry matter against the 39.0% typical for a puppy kibble. Cereal leads this recipe, and the label makes no pretence otherwise. Rice is gentle on most young digestions and maize is a dependable workhorse starch for a pup without a cereal sensitivity.

Poultry fat at 7% is the entry to read twice. It brings the fat level up to a declared 14.0%, and dogs find it very appealing. The word poultry covers any domestic bird without naming one, so an elimination diet cannot lean on it. Fish meal at 1% sits in the same position, giving marine oils without saying which fish they came from.

Linseed at 2.5% brings plant omega 3, good for skin and coat. Chicory at 0.01% is there for its inulin, food for the gut's own bacteria. The maker's puppy premix at 0.8% carries the vitamins and trace elements, and that panel is dosed in print behind it.

The analysis is where the label runs short for a growth food. Calcium is not printed, which leaves a large or giant breed owner with nothing to check. Moisture is missing too, so the dry matter column here is worked from an assumed figure. Energy of 364 kcal per 100g is our estimate, not a declared figure. It sits a touch below the 376 typical for a puppy kibble.

£3.13 a kilo, sold in 3kg, 10kg and 15kg bags, with a sample pack also listed.

Puppy feeding moves week by week, so use the bag's chart to begin with and let your pup's shape tell you when to move up or down. The label's guide starts at 55g a day for the smallest and tops out at 200g.