Burgess Sensitive Senior review

Our Good band is where this lands, and it is where the typical adult dry food sits too. Turkey meal at 16% is a modest meat share, and the carbohydrate estimate runs to 55.5% of dry matter against a 46.2% typical. The label does not declare moisture, so we assume the standard 8% when converting figures. Set against that, the senior extras are genuine and the recipe does the settling, low-excitement job it was written for.

Ingredients, as declared: Rice, Turkey Meal (16%), Salmon, Dried Beet Pulp (4.5%), Minerals, Poultry Fat, Linseed (2%), Poultry Gravy, Lignocellulose, Oat Feed, Fish Oil (1%), Dried Alfalfa (1%), Dried Seaweed (0.5%), Yeast (as a source of Mannan-oligosaccharides (Prebiotic MOS 0.18%)), Mono Di and Tri Glycerides 0.15%), Chicory Root Extract (as a source of fructo-oligosaccharides (prebiotic FOS 0.1%), Yucca Schidigera (0.023%), Glucosamine (0.014%).

Rice first and turkey meal at 16% second, with salmon following at an undeclared level. Meal is concentrated, pre-dried protein, but the inclusion is small, and protein converts to a gentle 21.7% of dry matter with fat lighter still at 9.8%. This is a recipe about calm rather than muscle.

The fibre plan is layered: beet pulp for the soluble kind, lignocellulose and oat feed for bulk. Lignocellulose is purified plant fibre, useful for filling an older dog up without piling on calories, though it is an industrial ingredient rather than something from the vegetable patch.

Omegas come from linseed at 2%, fish oil at 1% and a little dried seaweed, a sensible plant-and-marine mix for skin and coat at this age.

The additive panel works hard: taurine at 1000 mg/kg for the heart, L-carnitine at 150 mg/kg for fat metabolism, glucosamine at 0.014%, prebiotic MOS at 0.18% and FOS at 0.1%. Part of the zinc is supplied in chelated form at 25 mg/kg, the form generally taken up more readily.

The familiar caveat applies: poultry fat and poultry gravy are unnamed, so the recipe cannot promise a fixed bird from batch to batch. For everyday senior feeding that rarely matters; for a dog with a proven poultry problem it does.

£2.83 a kilo, in 2kg and 12.5kg bags.

Fed on the standard 840 kcal maintenance assumption (110 × bodyweight^0.75), a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 244 grams a day, which comes to roughly £0.69.