Nature's Harvest Senior review

This reaches our Excellent band on the same terms the rest of the brand does. The label names its animal with a figure beside it, itemises from front to back, and hides no detail behind category terms. Adult wet food as a whole also reaches Excellent, so choosing a senior recipe here does not mean trading quality for a life-stage label. Nutritional balance and transparency read Outstanding, protein and processing Good, and value Excellent. The lower fat and slightly higher starch are exactly what separates this from the adult recipes, and neither shift is large enough to move the band.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken (55%), Brown Rice (6%), Dried Carrots (1.3%, equivalent to 10% Carrots), Dried Peas (1.3%, equivalent to 4% Peas), Salmon Oil, Dried Basil, Dried Parsley, Dried Rosemary, Dried Mint, Dried Sage, Minerals, High Nucelotide Yeast Extract (0.015%), Seaweed Meal, Glucosamine (0.004%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.002%), Yucca Schidigera (0.025%), Cranberry (0.002%)

Chicken at 55% is the foundation, five points below the adult range and still comfortably meat-led for a wet food. Protein converts to 44.0% of dry matter, a strong figure for an older dog. Healthy senior dogs generally do better with their protein kept up, and this recipe keeps it up.

The gentling happens in the fat, which lands at 18.0% of dry matter. It also happens in the starch, which rises with brown rice at 6% to leave estimated carbohydrate at 20.0% of dry matter against the 15.8% typical of adult wet food. That is the trade a senior recipe usually makes: fewer calories from fat, a little more from a slow, familiar grain. Dried carrots at 1.3% stand in for 10% fresh carrots and dried peas at 1.3% for 4% fresh peas, and both are declared that way on the label.

Glucosamine at 0.004% and chondroitin at 0.002% sit near the list's end. Meat and cartilage carry both of them naturally anyway, and at these amounts they read as a thoughtful gesture, not a measured programme. A dog already on something from the vet keeps taking it, with this as the dinner underneath.

The rest of the tail is the brand's usual careful work: high nucleotide yeast extract at 0.015%, yucca schidigera at 0.025%, cranberry at 0.002% and seaweed meal for iodine and minerals. A herb bench of basil, parsley, rosemary, mint and sage follows in trace amounts. Rosemary pulls a second shift, keeping the fats fresh as a natural antioxidant.

The added panel is printed in full, with zinc at 25mg, iron at 16.5mg, manganese at 6mg, copper at 2.5mg, iodine at 0.4mg and selenium at 0.05mg per kilo. Vitamin A follows at 2,500 IU, vitamin D3 at 200 IU and vitamin E at 25mg. Several trace elements are chelated to amino acids, a form generally taken up more easily, which matters a little more in an older gut than a young one.

£6.19 a kilo, sold in 395g packs singly or in tens.

Assume a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needing about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Feeding works out at around £4.81 a day, or roughly 778 grams. An older, quieter dog will usually settle below that figure rather than above it.