Nourish Grain Free Senior: Salmon With Trout, Sweet Potato & Asparagus review

Every recipe here comes out Good on our scale, the same as the typical adult dry food. The construction is honest for a senior food: half of each recipe declared as named fish or turkey, the joint package dosed in print, and L-carnitine given a figure rather than a mention. Starch is the thing keeping them where they are. Once the fat is cut, the energy has to come from somewhere. Carbohydrate finishes at 51.6% of dry matter for the fish and 47.9% for the turkey. For an older dog with a bit too much on board, most owners would make that trade happily.

Ingredients, as declared: Trout & Salmon 50% (including Freshly Prepared Trout 30%, Dried Salmon 11%, Freshly Prepared Salmon 4%, Salmon Oil 3%, Salmon Stock 2% ), Sweet Potato (24%), Potato, Peas (6%), Beet Pulp, Pea Protein, Linseed, Potato Protein, Minerals, Vitamins, Vegetable Stock, Asparagus (0.3%), Glucosamine (170 mg/kg), Methylsulfonyl- methane (170 mg/kg), Chondroitin Sulphate (125 mg/ kg), FOS (96 mg/kg), MOS (24 mg/kg)

Fat is the number that defines this pair. The fish recipe declares 8% and the turkey 9%, which works out at 8.7% and 9.8% of dry matter, well below what an adult kibble usually runs. The energy follows at 340 and 343 kcal per 100g. A senior food exists for exactly that reason: a dog doing less needs less, and taking the fat out is the kindest way to give it to them.

Both labels break the meat out into a fresh share and a dried one. Before it is cooked, freshly prepared meat is mostly water. The dried entry is the one that carries protein into the bowl. The analysis comes out at 27.2% of dry matter in the fish, 29.3% in the turkey.

L-carnitine is dosed at 480 mg per kilo in the fish recipe and 500 mg in the turkey. L-carnitine is an amino acid, and its job is moving fat into the muscle to be burned. That is why weight-conscious and senior recipes carry it. A printed figure of that size means it is doing more than decorating the label.

The joint package is the other senior touch and it is written out in full on both bags: glucosamine and methylsulfonylmethane at 170 mg/kg, chondroitin sulphate at 125 mg/kg. Fructooligosaccharides at 96 mg/kg and mannanoligosaccharides at 24 mg/kg feed the gut bacteria, with beet pulp giving them something to work on.

Sweet potato opens the plant side, at 24% of the fish recipe and 16% of the turkey, with potato and peas below it, and neither list carries a cereal. Linseed supplies plant omega 3 in both. The fish recipe names salmon oil at 3%, so its marine omega 3 is visible on the label. The turkey recipe carries an unnamed omega 3 supplement. On a strict exclusion diet that one cannot be treated as fish free.

The mineral panels are dosed throughout, with iron at 50 mg, manganese at 35 mg and iodine at 1 mg per kilo on both. Zinc is set higher in the fish recipe at 65 mg against 50 mg in the turkey, while copper goes the other way at 5 mg and 15 mg. Only the turkey label declares selenium, at 0.3 mg as sodium selenite.

Trout is the lead here, freshly prepared at 30%. Salmon comes in four ways behind it: dried at 11%, freshly prepared at 4%, as an oil at 3% and as a stock at 2%. Every animal entry is a fish, and the marine oil is named openly. It is the leaner and lower-energy of the pair at 8.7% fat on a dry matter basis and 340 kcal per 100g, and calcium sits at 1.09% of dry matter, the gentler of the two. Pea protein and potato protein come in below the meat, and asparagus at 0.3% gives the recipe its name.

£4.00 a kilo for either recipe, sold as a 200g sample, a 1.5kg bag, a 6kg bag and a 13.5kg sack.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 247 grams a day of the fish recipe and 245 of the turkey. That works from around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), and comes to £0.99 and £0.98 a day. The label asks 150 grams for a 10kg dog and 250 for a 20kg one. A dog who has slowed down often needs a little under that table.