Royal Canin Medium Puppy Dry Dog Food11–25 kg adult weight · 2 to 12 months

A medium-breed puppy roughly triples her birth weight in the first month and keeps going for a year. It's a less brutal growth curve than a Great Dane's but it's still the most demanding thing her body will ever do, and it all runs on what's in the bowl.

Protein at 32% and fat at 20% cover it, with an antioxidant complex and betaglucans supporting an immune system through the gap between her mother's protection fading and her own arriving. Prebiotics and highly digestible proteins keep digestion settled — puppy guts are less forgiving than adult ones, and a rich food she can't absorb just becomes mess on the floor. Yucca extract cuts stool odour, which you'll appreciate. She moves onto Medium Adult at twelve months, or thirteen for the bigger end of the range.

• Healthy Growth
• Immune Support
• Digestive Health

Ingredients

Dehydrated poultry protein, animal fats, maize, vegetable protein isolate (L.I.P. — protein selected for its very high digestibility), beet pulp, maize gluten, rice, wheat flour, hydrolysed animal proteins, wheat, maize flour, minerals, fish oil, soya oil, yeasts and parts thereof, fructo-oligo-saccharides (0.34%), hydrolysed yeast (source of manno-oligo-saccharides), yeast extracts (source of betaglucans), marigold extract (source of lutein). Additives (per kg) — Nutritional additives: Vitamin A 16,000 IU · Vitamin D3 1,000 IU · Vitamin E 520 mg · E1 (Iron) 45 mg · E2 (Iodine) 4.5 mg · E4 (Copper) 14 mg · E5 (Manganese) 59 mg · E6 (Zinc) 123 mg · E8 (Selenium) 0.08 mg. Technological additives: Clinoptilolite of sedimentary origin 10 g. Sensory additives: Yucca extract 125 mg. Preservatives. Antioxidants.

Looking after it

Store in a cool, dry place, sealed. Use within six weeks of opening — decant the 15 kg into an airtight bin rather than rolling the bag down. Don't over-exercise her while she's growing: five minutes of lead walking per month of age, twice a day, is the usual rule, and stairs and long runs can wait. Weigh her fortnightly and keep her lean; a fat puppy grows into a dog with worse joints.