Hero by Asda Senior Dog Cans in Jelly: With Beef review

The three senior tins finish together in our Average band, with no daylight between the flavours. The typical adult wet food is a good deal higher, in our Excellent band, for the reason that runs through the rest of the Hero line. Protein and processing reads Poor because so little of the meat is named, while nutritional balance reads Good, transparency Outstanding and value Average. The senior claim itself is not hollow, since the fat and the energy really are lower than the brand's adult tins. A lighter analysis still cannot make up for a list that names neither its meat nor its grain. Older dogs have eaten this kind of tin for decades and done well on it, and that is worth holding in mind alongside the band.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and Animal Derivatives (33%, including 4% Beef), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars

The tin opens with meat and animal derivatives at 33%, and the animal on the front, whether beef, chicken or turkey, accounts for 4% of the recipe. The term is a legal umbrella for the fleshy parts and processing products of warm-blooded land animals, which means the block is real animal material of a kind and quality the label will not describe.

The analysis is where this tin earns its senior name. Nothing in the list is aimed at an older dog. Fat converts to 13.9% of dry matter and energy comes down to 71 kcal per 100g, light even by the standards of wet food, where the typical adult food sits at 97. For a dog whose exercise has dropped away, a lower energy density is genuinely useful, because the bowl can stay the size it always was.

Cereals is the second entry and it goes unnamed, as it does throughout this brand. The estimated carbohydrate of 38.9% of dry matter, against 15.8% for typical adult wet food, tells you the grain is carrying a good deal of the tin. That is one way to bring energy density down, though it is not the way a nutritionist would reach for first.

The jelly is set with cassia gum at 2.8 g. The gum is made from senna seed and cleared for use in pet food, and it normally works with other gelling agents that need no declaration of their own. Worth knowing about, and not a reason to worry about the tin.

Every figure in the added panel is printed, and there are more of them here than in the brand's pouches. Vitamin D₃ is at 187 IU and vitamin E at 19 mg, with iron at 13.09 mg, zinc at 18.73 mg, manganese at 1.62 mg, iodine at 0.49 mg and copper at 0.62 mg. Various sugars closes the list, as it does across the range.

Beef is the named meat, at 4% of the tin. Red meat is strongly flavoured, which helps with an older dog whose sense of smell has dulled. Beef carries more purines than the poultry tins do, worth knowing if urinary stones are part of your dog's history.

£1.45 a kilo, in 400g tins, packed in sixes.

Working from about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), a 15kg dog in moderate condition would need roughly 1183 grams a day, close to three tins, and about £1.72. Treat that as a ceiling. An older dog doing less will usually eat under it.