Iams Advanced Nutrition Senior Small and Medium Breed review

This one settles in the Good band, alongside the middle of the adult dry market, so an older small dog moving onto it stays with the mainstream.

It gets there on a decent meat declaration and a carbohydrate figure close to normal for a dry food. What pegs it back is cereal doing a good share of the carrying, plus mineral forms of the ordinary sort with no chelates among them. As a bag for a greying terrier or spaniel, it reads sensible and unfussy.

Ingredients, as declared: dried chicken and turkey 28% (including chicken 17%), barley, maize, fresh chicken (10%), pork fat, dried beet pulp (2.5%), chicken gravy, minerals (including sodium hexametaphosphate 0.35%), linseed, fructooligosaccharides (0.2%), brewer's dried yeast, glucosamine from animal tissues (0.04%).

The list starts with 28% dried chicken and turkey, of which chicken alone is 17%, and 10% fresh chicken comes after the cereals. The dried share is the number that matters, its water having gone before the mixer, and 28% is a solid declaration for a kibble on the general shelf.

Barley and maize sit between the two meat entries and carry the starch, with no maize flour in this recipe. Protein converts to 29.3% of dry matter, fat to 13.0% and estimated carbohydrate to 47.5%, which for a cereal based senior food is a respectable balance rather than a compromise.

Glucosamine from animal tissues is declared at 0.04%. That is a light touch and not a joint programme. Still, the percentage is printed, which a good many labels never manage, and it sits alongside a fat level chosen with a quieter older dog in mind.

The gut gets attention as well. Dried beet pulp at 2.5% adds the fibre that firms up a stool and fructooligosaccharides at 0.2% feed the friendly bacteria, a pairing that suits a digestion that has slowed with age. Brewer's dried yeast rounds it off with B vitamins.

Sodium hexametaphosphate at 0.35% is in the mineral mix for tartar, which matters more with every year that passes on a small dog's teeth. Calcium works out at 1.63% of dry matter and the additive panel is dosed in full, with vitamin D3 at 1100IU per kilo, vitamin E at 135mg and iron at 69mg.

Sold in 2kg, 3kg, 5kg and 12kg bags.

The label asks 200 grams a day for a 15kg dog and 100 grams for a 5kg one. Our own maintenance estimate for that 15kg dog, working from about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), comes out nearer 241 grams. Start from the bag's figure and adjust to the dog you can see.