Pets at Home Complete Nutrition Mature Senior Wet: Chicken in Jelly review

The three tins share one recipe and one placement, and it is our Average band, while the typical adult wet food reaches Excellent. The split across our pillars is worth reading, because it is not uniform. Nutritional balance comes out Excellent, which is fair for a lean, protein rich analysis aimed at an older dog. Protein and processing reads Poor while transparency reads Outstanding, and that pairing is the story.

Hardly a single entry on the list carries a name, so a scoring system has very little to assess. Read that as a comment on the label, not a warning about the food. Plenty of older dogs eat this every day and do well on it.

Ingredients, as declared: With Beef in Jelly:Meat and Animal Derivatives (33%, including 4% Beef), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars With Turkey in Jelly:Meat and Animal Derivatives (33%, including 4% Turkey), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugars. With Chicken in Jelly:Meat and Animal Derivatives (33%, including 4% Chicken), Cereals, Minerals, Various Sugar.

The whole list runs to four entries. Only one names anything: meat and animal derivatives at 33%, including 4% of the named species. Putting a figure on the block at all is more than many tins in this style bother with, so credit where it is due. The balance of that block stays out of view. It can be any warm blooded land animal, and it can vary without a word of the label changing.

The second entry is cereals, with no grain attached to it. Any of wheat, maize, rice or barley could be in there, and they can rotate between batches. Estimated carbohydrate converts to 27.8% of dry matter where the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%, so cereal carries a fair share of the tin.

Of the four entries, various sugars is the one owners tend to ask about. Dogs like the taste, which is why sugars go into wet food at all. The term takes in everything from cane sugar to caramel, without saying which. Knowing it is there is the useful part, particularly if you are watching an older dog's weight, and it sits at the bottom of a four item list rather than near the top.

The rest is straightforward. Cassia gum is declared at 2800 mg per kilo as the thickener that sets the jelly, which is more than many labels say about theirs. The added panel is short and fully dosed, with vitamin D3 at 187 IU and vitamin E at 19 mg alongside iron, iodine, manganese, zinc and copper each printed per kilo. Calcium converts to 1.67% of dry matter, comfortably clear of what an adult dog needs. Protein at 44.4% of dry matter with fat at only 13.9% makes a genuinely lean, protein forward bowl for a senior.

Chicken fills the named 4%. Chicken is the meat a dog is most likely to have met already, and the one that shows up most in intolerance histories. Bear that in mind if it has caused trouble for your dog before.

£1.37 a kilo in the case of 24 and £1.41 a kilo in the case of 6, sold as 400g tins.

As a guide, and working from the £1.37 figure, feeding comes to about £1.53 a day for a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition, or roughly 1120 grams. Around 840 kcal a day is the basis (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). At 75 kcal per 100g that is close to three tins a day.