K9 Optimum Medium/Maxi Senior review

Good is our reading here, the same reading most adult dry food earns. What lifts it is the construction running through the range: chicken named in both its fresh and dried forms with the shares printed, and chicken fat instead of an unnamed animal fat. The salmon is called salmon. Starch runs to 45.6% of dry matter, right on the ordinary mark for a kibble of this build. Dry matter protein works out at 27.2%. Where a senior label often earns its keep is in what it takes out, and this one does not take much out, so the case for it rests on what has been added instead.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken Freshly Prepared (20%), Chicken Dried (17%), Rice, Maize, Chicken Fat, Chicken Gravy, Salmon Freshly Prepared (4%), Whole Oats, Beet Pulp, Prairie Meal, Brewers Yeast, Egg Powder, Minerals, Salmon Oil, Turmeric, Marigold, Mannan Oligosaccharides, Fructo-Oligosaccharides, Glucosamine, Msm, Yucca Schidigera, Blackcurrant, Nz Green Lipped Mussel, Rosemary, Pomegranate

Chicken shows up as 20% freshly prepared and 17% dried. Fresh meat loses its water during cooking, which leaves that second entry supplying most of the kibble's protein. Protein converts to 27.2% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 45.6%, close to the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Rice and maize head the plant side with whole oats behind them. For an older gut the oats are a sensible inclusion, easily digested once cooked. They bring fibre, and manganese and selenium with it, plus the B vitamins. Beet pulp does the stool-forming work, and crude fibre finishes at 3.3% of dry matter.

Salmon at 4% and salmon oil are the marine omega source, and that form works most directly on skin and coat and on joint comfort. It matters every bit as much to an old dog as to a young one. Egg powder adds a small, complete protein and brewer's yeast the B vitamin group.

The senior thinking is concentrated at the end of the list. Glucosamine, methylsulphonylmethane and green lipped mussel are usually bought separately for an older dog. Having them built in saves a step. None of them is quantified on this label. Marigold is in as a source of lutein, which the eyes make good use of, and turmeric and pomegranate sit alongside blackcurrant as the antioxidant tail.

The additive panel is dosed and reads as though age was considered. Taurine at 850 mg per kilo is the amino acid most linked with heart muscle. Carnitine at 500 mg per kilo has a part in turning fat into energy, which matters on a food that has kept its fat level up. Zinc comes twice over, as a glycine chelate at 33 mg and as a sulphate at 115 mg per kilo. Selenium is sodium selenite at 0.1 mg per kilo, which is the form the rules allow and a modest amount of it. Calcium works out at 1.09% of dry matter, a settled adult level.

Moisture is declared at 8.0% and not assumed. It is a small point of transparency but a real one, since every dry matter figure above rests on it.

£3.17 a kilo, bagged at 2kg and 12kg.

On the standard maintenance estimate for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), the daily bowl comes to about 232 grams and £0.74. The maker's low activity table asks 200 to 240 grams for a dog between 15kg and 19kg, and for an older dog the waistline is the honest referee.