Edgard & Cooper Senior Kibble review

This lands in our Good band, level with the typical adult dry food. A tidy, fully named ingredients list carries it there, with a genuine 35% fresh chicken at the front. Two things keep it from climbing further: the starch share, and a protein figure pitched deliberately low for the senior brief. Transparency reads Outstanding while protein and processing and nutritional balance both read Average, which is the trade a lighter recipe for an older dog makes on purpose rather than by accident.

Ingredients, as declared: fresh chicken* 35%, sweet potato* (dried) 16.2%, peas* (dried), potatoes* (dried), fresh salmon* 5%, pea protein*, potato protein, chicken gravy, yeasts* (dried) 2%, tomato pomace*, linseed* 2%, beet pulp* (dried), minerals*, chicory* (dried) 0.5%, salmon oil* 0.5%, chicken fat*, broccoli* (dried) 0.4%, blueberries* (dried) 0.1%, glucosamine 0.04%, chondroitin sulphate* 0.04%, rosehip* (dried) 0.02%, turmeric* (dried) 0.02%. *Natural

Fresh chicken at 35% opens the label and fresh salmon at 5% follows it, both weighed before the oven takes their water out. No dried meat entry stands behind them, so part of the 23.9% of dry matter that protein reaches comes from pea protein and potato protein. That gentler protein level is deliberate, and it suits a dog whose kidneys and liver are getting older. A lean senior holding muscle may want a hand from a little fresh meat on top.

The plant side opens with dried sweet potato at 16.2%, then dried peas and dried potatoes. Carbohydrate works out at 49.5% of dry matter, above the 46.2% typical of adult dry food, and energy comes in at 349 kcal per 100g, below the 357 typical for the category. In practice that means slightly bigger portions of a lighter food, which is often exactly what an older dog with a big appetite and a slowing metabolism wants.

The senior thinking shows in the small entries. Glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate are both at 0.04%, twice the dose printed on the brand's adult labels, with turmeric and dried rosehip at 0.02% and dried broccoli at 0.4%. None of these is a treatment on its own, but doubling the joint pair on the recipe that names older dogs is the right instinct, and turmeric is a sensible companion to it.

Fibre gets attention too, declared at 5% and converting to 5.4% of dry matter, from dried beet pulp, dried chicory at 0.5% and dried yeasts at 2%. Chicory root brings inulin, a prebiotic that the large intestine's own bacteria live on. That is worth having on a food aimed at dogs whose digestion has become less predictable than it used to be.

Linseed at 2% supplies plant omega 3, and salmon oil at 0.5% supplies the marine kind. A dog puts that marine form straight to work on skin, coat and joints. Between the fresh salmon and the oil, fish runs right through this recipe, so a fish-avoiding household should have that in mind. Everyone else gets a useful dose of the good oils.

Calcium works out at 0.98% of dry matter, a gentle adult level. The supplement panel matches the rest of the brand's grain free line, with taurine at 1000 mg, vitamin E at 600 mg and vitamin C at 175 mg. Zinc follows at 120 mg, iron at 75 mg, manganese at 12 mg, copper at 5.5 mg and iodine at 3.5 mg per kilo. The trace minerals arrive as sulphates rather than chelates and selenium as sodium selenite at 0.25 mg.

£6.08 a kilo. The bag sizes are two and a half kilos, 7kg and 12kg.

A 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 241 grams a day, which comes to £1.47, on a maintenance estimate of roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). Because this recipe is lighter per gram than most, that portion sits a little above the usual. Edgard & Cooper's own table gives 186 to 231 grams for a dog between 15kg and 20kg, and an older dog taking life slowly will often settle towards the lower end.