Belcando Senior Sensitive review

The Average band verdict wants unpacking, because the typical adult dry food sits a band above in Good and the gap is not about anything harmful. Once the water leaves the 30% fresh poultry, the recipe rests on an 8% dried backup and a long run of starches, and the species behind the poultry are never disclosed. Even so, transparency reads Excellent, and the drag comes instead from protein and processing and from nutritional balance, each of them Poor. For a laid-back senior with a delicate stomach, none of this necessarily shows up in the bowl.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh poultry meat (30%); Rice; Feed oatmeal; Potato starch (12%); Low-ash dried poultry protein (8%); Fish meal from sea fish (2.5%); Hydrolyzed gelatin (2.5%); Grape seed expeller (2.5%); Dried baker's yeast; Dried carob bean gum; Dehydrated sugar beet pulp; Oatmeal residue meal; Flaxseed; Chia seeds; Poultry fat; Hydrolyzed poultry liver; Dicalcium phosphate; Sodium chloride; Potassium chloride; Dried herbs (total: 0.2%; Nettle leaf, Gentian root, Centaurium erythraea, Chamomile, Fennel, Caraway, Mistletoe, Yarrow, Blackberry leaves); Yucca schidigera

Fresh poultry meat at 30% tops the list, but its water departs during baking and the dried poultry protein behind it is a modest 8%, so finished protein reads 21.7% of dry matter. A gentler protein level is a deliberate and common senior choice, so the number is less of a worry than the anonymity of the birds supplying it.

The sensitive half of the brief is handled with familiar, easily digested starches: rice, feed oatmeal and 12% potato starch. Dehydrated beet pulp adds the soluble fibre a settled gut appreciates, and yucca extract is a traditional touch for wind. Estimated carbohydrate lands at 56.6% of dry matter against a typical 46.2%, the main reason nutritional balance suffers.

The genuinely senior touches are small but real: 2.5% hydrolysed gelatin as a collagen source for joints, chia and flaxseed for omega 3s. Crude ash is just 5%, unusually low, and goes easy on the mineral load. Calcium works out at 0.89% of dry matter, a comfortable level for an older adult.

Grape seed expeller at 2.5% earns its usual double take; it is the pressed, de-oiled seed used as an antioxidant, nothing to do with the toxic fruit. The 0.2% herb mix is heritage seasoning, and the hydrolysed poultry liver exists to convince a jaded old appetite that dinner is still worth getting up for.

£4.18 a kilo, available as a 4kg or a 12.5kg bag.

Expect in the region of 253 grams and £1.06 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, working from the customary maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal (110 × bodyweight^0.75). Older dogs often need less than maintenance as activity drops, so revisit portions as the years tick over.