Sainsbury's Complete Nutrition Senior Dry review

The Poor band is where this one comes out, well below the Good band that the middle of the adult dry shelf occupies. Three things pull it there, and none is a fault in the bowl. An animal block gives a category with no species named, a grain entry names no grain, and the starch share runs above the shelf norm. The declared joint pair pulls the other way, as does the honesty of saying where the glucosamine comes from. For an older dog eating well and holding its condition, this stays a straightforward food to keep buying.

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, Meat and Animal Derivatives (25.5% including 4% Chicken, 0.025% Chondroitin), Oils and Fats, Vegetables (0.5% Dried Peas equivalent to 4% Peas), Minerals, Molluscs and Crustaceans (0.025% Glucosamine).

Cereals open the list, so grain is the foundation without the pack saying which grain it is. A manufacturer buying on the open market gets flexibility out of that. What it means for a dog with a suspected wheat problem is that this panel can neither rule wheat in nor rule it out.

Meat and animal derivatives at 25.5% is the animal share, with 4% of it named as chicken. Broad by design, the category covers warm blooded land animals from the fleshy parts through to the processing by-products, and material of every grade with it. Nothing here says the material is poor. It says only that the label is not telling you.

The joint entries are the real point of difference. Chondroitin is declared at 0.025% within the meat block, and glucosamine at 0.025% within a molluscs and crustaceans entry. That is where most of the glucosamine in dog food comes from, shell being unusually rich in it. These are small amounts. Read them as a gentle background helping, and they do not replace whatever your vet has you giving.

The panel gives protein at 21.0% and fat at 8.0% as fed. With no moisture printed on the pack, converting those to dry matter means assuming the 8% a kibble usually carries, which gives 22.8% protein, 8.7% fat and an estimated 57.0% carbohydrate. That is a gentle, starch-led shape, and for a less active older dog it is not the wrong one.

Minerals are added as oxides and sulphates, the traditional forms. Selenium comes as sodium selenite, a mineral salt; the yeast form is the one usually reckoned easier for a dog to take up. Vitamin A is dosed at 17000 IU, vitamin D3 at 1500 IU and vitamin E at 70mg per kilo, all of them printed.

£1.17 a kilo, sold in a 3kg bag.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at around £0.28 a day, on about 243 grams a day. That is on 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The pack's own guide asks 155 to 355 grams for a dog of 10kg to 30kg. Where your own dog lands in that range is a matter of their shape.