Pedigree Senior Wet: Mixed Selection in Loaf Tins review

Both entries stay inside our Average band, though they get there by different routes. The pouches come closest to leaving it: nutritional balance reads Outstanding, transparency Excellent and protein and processing Poor. They name chicken and poultry at 14% and hold estimated carbohydrate to 10.2% of dry matter, comfortably under the 15.8% typical for adult wet food. The tins pair Outstanding readings on nutritional balance and transparency with Poor on protein and processing, with smaller named meats at 4% and an estimated carbohydrate of 18.9%. The typical adult wet food reaches our Excellent band, so there is real ground between these two and the middle of the wet shelf. Almost all of it sits on the protein and processing side. What neither format is doing is feeding a dog badly. They are feeding a dog without telling you what is in the bowl.

Ingredients, as declared: With Chicken: Meat and Animal Derivatives* (including Chicken 4% and Pork Liver 4%), Cereals, Minerals, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (including Dried Beet Pulp 0.5%) *97% Natural, With Lamb and Liver Mix: Meat and Animal Derivatives* (including Mix of Lamb 4% and Pork Liver 4%), Cereals, Minerals, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (including Dried Beet Pulp 0.5%) *97% Natural, Original: Meat and Animal Derivatives* (including Mix of Beef 4% and Pork Liver 4%), Cereals, Minerals, Derivatives of Vegetable Origin (including Dried Beet Pulp 0.5%) *97% Natural

Both formats build on meat and animal derivatives, the legal category covering the fleshy parts and processing derivatives of warm blooded land animals. It can hold excellent material or very plain material, and a label using it gives you no way to know which, nor any guarantee that this month's batch matches last month's. The named entries are the fixed points. Chicken or poultry sits at 14% and the beef or lamb mixes at 6% in the pouches, while the tins name everything at 4%. Pork liver is at 9% or 4% depending on format.

Pork liver is the most useful thing on either list. Few things a dog eats carry more nutrition per gram, and this one brings vitamin A, B12, copper and selenium. It digests easily and it tastes good. With an older dog needing to be tempted, that matters.

The pouches list vegetable protein extracts high up, ahead of the cereals, so part of the protein reaching 48.0% of dry matter is plant rather than animal. They also carry oils and fats as an unnamed entry, which could be a beneficial animal fat or a plain processed oil, and the label does not commit either way. The tins skip both of those terms and go straight to cereals and derivatives of vegetable origin, with dried beet pulp at 0.5% named as the fibre.

The added panels are dosed and, for a senior food, sensibly weighted. The pouches carry vitamin E at 90.0 mg per kilo, with vitamin D3 at 200 IU and zinc at 22.7 mg. The tins run vitamin E at 30.0 mg, with vitamin D3 at 300 IU and zinc at 19.4 mg. A more generous vitamin E level in the pouches is a reasonable choice for an ageing dog. It is also the clearest sign on either label that the recipe was genuinely adjusted for the life stage and not just relabelled.

Read plainly, both are soft, moist, moderate meals that an older dog will eat happily, with the pouches the better analysis of the two and the tins the easier format to serve a big dog. The gap between them and a food we would score highly is not about safety or about digestibility. It is about being able to read what you are feeding, which neither label offers.

A case of six 400g loaf tins across three recipes, chicken, a lamb and liver mix and the original beef, each naming its meat at 4% with pork liver at 4%. The list is shorter than the pouches, with no vegetable protein extracts and no thickener, and the recipe is declared 97% natural. Protein converts to 42.1% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate to 18.9%, and the soft loaf is the easier texture for a dog whose teeth are past their best.

Both formats come to £5.25 a kilo, the pouches in 12 x 100g and 40 x 100g packs and the tins in a case of 6 x 400g.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at about £5.51 a day on the pouches, roughly 1050 grams, and about £5.13 a day on the tins, roughly 977 grams. Both come from the standard maintenance estimate of about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75). The labels themselves ask for less. The pouches want 700 to 800 grams a day for a 15kg dog. The tins want 500 to 550 grams for a 10kg dog, rising to 1400 to 1500 grams at 40kg.