Ydolo Puppy Cold-Pressed review

The band word here is Excellent, and the typical cold-pressed puppy food carries the same one, so this recipe stands shoulder to shoulder with its category. What lifts it there is the meat share at the front, the declared calcium figure and a label that prints its botanical doses instead of hinting at them.

What keeps it steady instead of climbing is the nutritional balance reading, since a pressed pellet leans on its starch to hold together. The leading meat is also described by its breed and not by its species.

Ingredients, as declared: 75% Fresh Meat and Wild Caught Fish (45% Iberico meat, 15% Sardines, 15% Anchovies), 20% sweet potato, 3% health mix: (banana (5982 mg/kg), artichoke (4487 mg/kg), chicory, alfalfa (2692 mg/kg), apples (2542 mg/kg), broccoli, blueberries (2333 mg/kg), Brussels sprouts (2303 mg/kg), green-lipped mussel (598 mg/kg), rosemary (419 mg/kg), thyme (389 mg/kg), oregano (359 mg/kg), milk thistle, spirulina (242 mg/kg), olive oil, yucca), 1% trout oil, glucosamine (1000 mg/kg), chondroitin (850 mg/kg), msm (650 mg/kg)

Iberico meat at 45% is the headline. Iberico is a breed of pig, not a species of its own, so what goes in the bowl is pork of a rather good sort. A label that spelled the species out plainly would be doing its reader a favour. Sardines at 15% and anchovies at 15% take the meat share to 75%, which is a generous animal fraction for a pressed pellet.

Sweet potato is the one starch at 20%, binding the pellet and carrying much of the energy. It keeps carbohydrate to 34.0% of dry matter against the 41.4% typical of cold-pressed puppy food. Protein converts to 33.1% and fat to 19.9%, a sensible pairing for steady growth, and moisture is declared at 18.2% so the dry matter column rests on the label.

Calcium is printed at 1.47% of dry matter. On any puppy label that single figure is the one worth hunting for. Too much calcium in a large breed puppy is the situation to steer around, and here the figure is declared for you.

The 3% health mix is itemised properly, with banana, artichoke, chicory, alfalfa, apples, blueberries and Brussels sprouts carrying printed mg/kg figures and milk thistle, spirulina, olive oil and yucca behind them. Chicory is the quietly useful one, feeding the gut bacteria as a prebiotic. Green-lipped mussel appears here at a smaller inclusion than the adult recipes carry, and rosemary, thyme and oregano finish the mix at trace level.

Glucosamine at 1000 mg/kg, chondroitin at 850 mg/kg and MSM at 650 mg/kg are on a puppy label with their doses attached, which is unusual and reads as looking ahead for a big-framed dog. The omega 3 fats come from trout oil at 1%, taurine and L-carnitine are declared as nutritional additives, and the vitamin and trace element panel is printed in full.

£7.50 a kilo, in 2.5kg and 10kg bags.

There is no printed table here, so portions come from the food's energy content. Between four and twelve months old, a 10kg puppy lands at roughly 194 to 237 grams a day and a 20kg one at about 326 to 398 grams.