Royal Canin Medium Ageing 10+ review

Ageing 10+ finishes in our Average band, below the Good band that the middle of the adult dry category occupies. What holds it back is structural, and none of it is alarming. Wheat flour, maize and maize flour follow the poultry immediately, and the animal entries name a family instead of a species. Estimated carbohydrate works out at 49.6% of dry matter against the 46.2% that is typical for adult dry food. What the scoring cannot reward, because there is no figure on the label to read, is the senior tail of the list, and that part of the recipe is doing genuine work. It remains an easy, sensible bowl for the dog the bag is aimed at.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated poultry proteins, wheat flour, maize, maize flour, rice, animal fats, maize gluten, wheat, beet pulp, hydrolysed animal proteins, wheat gluten, fish oil, soya oil, yeasts products, minerals, psyllium husks and seeds, fructo-oligosaccharides, algal oil Schizochytrium sp. (source of EPA and DHA), yeasts (source of manno-oligosaccharides), glucosamine from fermentation, marigold meal, hydrolysed cartilage (source of chondroitin).

Dehydrated poultry proteins lead, and for an old dog that matters more than it might sound. Protein converts to 28.3% of dry matter here, a sensible level for a body whose muscle wants defending. The word poultry, though, refuses to pick a bird, and the same vagueness runs through the animal fats and, further down, the hydrolysed animal proteins.

The base is cereal and plenty of it. Wheat flour, maize, maize flour and rice fill the next four places, maize gluten, wheat and wheat gluten follow, and estimated carbohydrate lands at 49.6% of dry matter. Cooked cereal digests well in the great majority of dogs. Rice is about as easy on a stomach as a grain gets. Maize gluten is the entry that attracts the most argument, since it lifts the protein figure without meat doing the lifting.

The ageing case is made in the final entries. Glucosamine arrives from fermentation and chondroitin from hydrolysed cartilage, the two supplements owners reach for on older joints, and marigold meal brings lutein along with them. What the label will not give you is a milligram figure for any of them, so you can see that they are present but not in what quantity.

Fish oil and algal oil supply EPA and DHA between them. The algal entry is the unusual one, a marine omega 3 that is grown, not caught. The psyllium husks and seeds are there for soluble fibre, the fructo-oligosaccharides feed the gut flora, and beet pulp holds the middle ground, although crude fibre stays modest at 1.8% of dry matter.

The additive panel is complete. Vitamin A sits at 21900 IU, vitamin D3 at 1000 IU, vitamin C at 300 mg and vitamin E at 500 mg. Zinc runs at 131 mg, manganese at 45 mg and iron at 35 mg, with copper at 11 mg, iodine at 3.5 mg and selenium at 0.09 mg per kilo. Two figures a careful reader would want are missing. Moisture is one, and that is why the dry matter conversions here run on an assumed 8%. Calcium is the other. The energy figure of 370 kcal per 100g is our estimate, not a declaration.

£4.91 a kilo, sold in 3kg and 15kg bags.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg dog in moderate condition means about 227 grams a day, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), or £1.12 a day. The label's table asks 148 grams for an 11kg dog and 275 grams for a 25kg one at low activity, so let your dog's outline decide between the readings.