Growling Tums Gourmet Senior review

It comes out in our Good band. The typical adult dry food comes out level with it. Transparency reads Outstanding here and value Good: species are named, percentages sit against the fish, and the joint supplements, the prebiotics and the L-Carnitine are all given as doses. Nutritional balance and protein and processing both read Average, and the arithmetic explains that plainly. Protein converts to 27.2% of dry matter while carbohydrate reaches 51.6%, and two of the protein-bearing entries on the list are plants rather than fish. It still does the senior job it was written to do.

Ingredients, as declared: Freshly Prepared Trout (30%), Sweet Potato (24%), Dried Salmon (11%), Potato, Peas, Sugar Beet Pulp, Freshly Prepared Salmon (4%), Pea Protein, Whole Linseed, Salmon Oil (3%), Potato Protein, Salmon Gravy (2%), Vitamins & Minerals, Vegetable Gravy (2%), Asparagus (equivalent to 7.5g per Kg of product), Glucosamine (170 mg/kg), Methylsulfonylmethane (170 mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (125 mg/kg), FOS (92 mg/kg), MOS (23 mg/kg).

Freshly prepared trout at 30% opens the list, and the oven takes a lot of water out of fresh fish. Dried salmon at 11% is the entry that carries furthest into the finished kibble. Behind it come freshly prepared salmon at 4%, salmon gravy at 2% and salmon oil at 3%. The fish is doing real work here, but the 30% at the top of the list is not 30% of what lands in the bowl.

Salmon oil at 3% is the entry an older dog benefits from most. A dog can use marine omega 3 straight away, with no conversion step of the kind plant sources need. Whole linseed is on the list too, and that adds the plant version alongside it.

The plant side starts with sweet potato at 24%, then potato, peas and sugar beet pulp. No cereal appears anywhere on this list. Pea protein and potato protein deserve their own mention. Processing leaves both behind as by-products, and a dog takes less from plant protein than from fish. That makes 27.2% of dry matter read a little softer than the number alone suggests.

The senior thinking is dosed rather than implied. The joints get glucosamine at 170 mg per kilo, MSM at 170 mg and chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg. L-Carnitine at 480 mg is an amino acid, and it helps a dog burn through its own fat stores while lean muscle stays put. That is why it turns up in lighter diets.

Calcium converts to 1.09% of dry matter, a comfortable level for an adult or older dog. Every trace mineral comes with its dose, zinc at 65 mg, iron at 50 mg, manganese at 35 mg, copper at 5 mg and iodine at 1 mg per kilo. FOS at 92 mg and MOS at 23 mg feed the gut bacteria. Asparagus at 7.5g per kilo of food is the flourish at the end.

£5.08 a kilo, sold in 4kg, 6kg and 12kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg dog in moderate condition takes about 247 grams a day, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), which comes to £1.26 a day. An older dog doing less than they used to will often need less than the table suggests, so let the waistline decide.