James Wellbeloved Senior Grain Free Dry: Lamb & Veg review

Both varieties come to rest in our Good band, the same band the typical adult dry food occupies. The score reads as ordinary rather than worrying: the construction leans on carbohydrate and takes nutritional balance down to Poor, while protein and processing reads Average, value Good and transparency Outstanding. None of that stops the range doing the quieter job it sets out to do, which is feeding an older dog gently from a readable label.

Ingredients, as declared: pea starch, dried lamb protein* (23.5%), dried potatoes* (22.6%), tomato pomace* (5%), pea protein, poultry fat*, whole linseed* (3.2%), lamb gravy, dried peas* (2.6%), sugar beet pulp*, alfalfa meal*, seaweed* (0.5%), dried carrots* (0.5%), pea fibre*, minerals, fish oil, nettles*, parsley*, chicory extract* (0.1%), glucosamine (0.045%), yucca extract* (0.02%), chondroitin (0.005%). *Natural ingredient.

Pea starch opens both lists, and the named meat arrives as a dried protein at 23.5%. Dried protein deserves a fair reading. With the water already out, a gram of it carries more protein than a gram of fresh meat, and this one keeps its species on the label. Even so, the balance of the bowl is starch. Carbohydrate converts to 53.6% of dry matter on the lamb label and 56.3% on the turkey, against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food.

The grain-free promise is kept with dried potatoes and peas in place of cereal. Tomato pomace at 5% and whole linseed bring fibre and omega fats, and the overall fibre level runs slightly generous, a sensible choice for older digestion.

The senior touches are printed, not implied. Glucosamine at 0.045% and chondroitin at 0.005% are dosed on the label, with chicory extract at 0.1% adding a prebiotic nudge. Zinc arrives as a chelate, the form generally picked for absorption.

The quieter entries matter most if your dog runs an exclusion diet. Poultry fat appears in both recipes without naming its bird, and fish oil follows further down, so one named meat protein on the front does not make either recipe a single-animal food. For a dog with a simple preference and no diagnosed allergy, neither entry is likely to cause any trouble.

Seaweed and dried carrots at 0.5% each, with nettles and parsley behind them, close the list at trace levels. They read nicely and weigh little. The recipe stands on its potato, pea and dried meat construction, and that is where to judge it.

Dried lamb protein at 23.5% is the only named meat protein here, just ahead of dried potatoes at 22.6%, with sugar beet pulp supplying part of the fibre. It runs marginally richer than the turkey, with fat at 10.9% of dry matter. If red meat is what your dog does best on, this is the one to take, though the poultry fat further down the list means it is not poultry free.

Both varieties are £5.70 a kilo. The lamb comes in 1.5kg, 4.5kg and 10kg bags, while the turkey is sold in the 10kg bag only.

As a guide, feeding works out at around £1.39 to £1.40 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label's own guide for a 15kg dog with 1 to 3 hours of activity a day is 210 to 235 grams for the lamb and 210 to 230 grams for the turkey.