WorkingHPRs Puppy: Grain Free Large Breed Salmon with Sweet Potato review

This range covers more ground than most. The grain-free Chicken, Turkey and Salmon recipe reaches our Excellent band, with the grain-free Large Breed Salmon alongside it. The Large Breed Salmon and Potato recipe and Working Puppy sit in our Good band, level with the middle of the puppy dry field. The pattern is easy to read: where WorkingHPRs names its meat and prints its doses, the recipe does well, and the one built from meals on a cereal base sits furthest back. The pillars follow the same line, with transparency Outstanding on three of the four, and protein and processing slipping to Average on the two recipes at the back.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon 60% (Freshly Prepared Salmon 38%, Dried Salmon 20%, Salmon Stock 2%), Sweet Potato (19%), Potato, Beet Pulp, Linseed, Minerals, Vitamins, Carrot, Peas (0.2%), Omega 3 Supplement, Vegetable Stock, Glucosamine (355 mg/kg), Methylsulfonylmethane (355 mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (250 mg/kg), Nucleotides, FOS (96 mg/kg), MOS (24 mg/kg)

The grain-free Chicken, Turkey and Salmon recipe carries the most itemised label in the range. Its 60% meat total breaks down into 20% freshly prepared chicken and 14% dried chicken. Then come freshly prepared turkey and freshly prepared salmon at 7% each, dried turkey at 7%, dried salmon at 3% and chicken stock at 2%. The dried portions do more than their share suggests, since the water has already gone out of them before they reach the mixer.

The grain-free Large Breed recipe keeps to one fish: 38% freshly prepared salmon, 20% dried salmon and 2% salmon stock make up its own 60%. That list names no meat but salmon, and for a fish-fed pup that is genuinely useful. The omega 3 supplement gives no species, though, so a strict elimination trial needs that entry read alongside the headline.

Sweet potato at 22% and 19% respectively carries the starch in the two grain-free recipes, with potato, beet pulp and linseed behind it. Linseed brings plant-side omega 3 and fibre along with it. Carrot and peas appear at fractions of a per cent, peas as low as 0.07%, so they are garnish on the label.

The joint and gut package on those two comes with doses. In the Chicken, Turkey and Salmon recipe, the glucosamine and MSM come in at 170 mg/kg each with chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg. The Large Breed one runs 355, 355 and 250 mg/kg, where a heavier frame gives them more to do. FOS at 96 mg/kg and MOS at 24 mg/kg are the prebiotics on both, with nucleotides alongside them.

Large Breed Salmon and Potato takes a different route, with fresh salmon at a minimum of 24% and salmon meal at 11% over potato at 15%, potato protein at 11%, barley and oats. It is a grain-inclusive recipe, and while salmon leads it comfortably, the poultry fat further down means the list is not fish-only. Potato protein is a processing by-product that lifts the protein figure on the analysis. For digestibility it does not stand comparison with meat protein.

Working Puppy is the plainest of the four. Poultry meal opens it, followed by rice, maize, oats and barley, with fish meal and chicken hydrolysate behind them. Most of the animal content is described only by family, so it cannot be measured from the print. Its joint trio and prebiotics are on the list but carry no doses at all, which is a different proposition from the grain-free pair. Egg powder, brewers yeast, linseeds and salmon oil are the useful extras. L-carnitine appears in the tail, and its part is helping turn fat into usable energy.

Calcium is declared on every recipe, which is more than many ranges manage on a growth food. It converts to 1.3% of dry matter on Chicken, Turkey and Salmon, 1.41% on the grain-free Large Breed recipe and 1.09% on Large Breed Salmon and Potato, all comfortably inside what a developing skeleton wants. Working Puppy reads 1.97%, higher than large and giant breed growth plans normally work to. That is the one figure in the range to take to your vet if a big pup is going to live on it.

Built for pups growing into a large frame, this one keeps its animal content to salmon: 38% freshly prepared, 20% dried and 2% as stock. The joint doses are the biggest in the range at 355 mg/kg each of glucosamine and MSM with 250 mg/kg of chondroitin sulphate, which suits a heavy pup's developing joints. Protein reads 25.0% and fat 13.0% with 376 kcal per 100g, and calcium converts to 1.41% of dry matter. Only the omega 3 supplement leaves its species unstated, so read that entry before treating this as a strict one-fish diet.

£4.07 a kilo for both grain-free recipes, £3.60 a kilo for Large Breed Salmon and Potato and £3.20 a kilo for Working Puppy, all sold in 15kg bags.

How much a puppy eats is set by the size they are growing into. Use the line on the bag's chart that matches their expected adult weight, and check it again as the weeks pass.