Wainwright's Sensitive Mature Dry Food review

Good is the band here, level with where the median adult dry food settles. The reading is much like the adult recipe with the dials turned back for age. Protein is 29.9% of dry matter, fat 13.0% and carbohydrate 42.8%, still under the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. Transparency comes back Outstanding. Nutritional balance reads Average, with value and protein and processing both Good. Trimmed fat, a smaller salmon share and considerably more sweet potato separate it from its sharper stablemate. All three suit an older dog with less to burn and a gut that prefers not to be surprised.

Ingredients, as declared: Salmon (50%) (Freshly Prepared Scottish Salmon* 30%, Salmon Meal 17%, Salmon Digest 3%), Sweet Potato (35%), Beet Pulp (8%), Rapeseed Oil, Krill Meal (0.9%), Seaweed Meal (0.1%), Chicory Root Extract (as a source of Prebiotic FOS) (0.05%), Green Lipped Mussel Extract (0.05%), Glucosamine (0.04%), MSM (0.04%), Chondroitin (0.029%), Yucca Extract (0.02%)

The 50% salmon is printed in three parts: 30% freshly prepared Scottish salmon, 17% as meal and 3% as digest. Most of fresh fish is water, and cooking takes it out. The meal is the portion that really lands in the bowl, and 17% of it keeps the finished protein up at 29.9% of dry matter. Moisture is not declared, so that conversion assumes the 8% a kibble normally holds. The fish is named all the way down the list, with no general term to fall back on. That is what makes a recipe usable when you are holding a dog to one thing.

The only starch is sweet potato at 35%. If something does upset your dog, that keeps the list of possible culprits short. It is a slower-releasing carbohydrate than most cereals, and it takes up the space the adult version gives to salmon oil. Carbohydrate ends at 42.8% of dry matter, still below the 46.2% typical for adult dry food, so the recipe stays meat-led.

The added fat is rapeseed oil, not a fish oil. That is why fat reads 12.0%, softer than the figure a heavily oiled recipe carries. That is a sensible choice for an older dog with less to burn. The marine omega 3 still arrives, from the salmon itself and from krill meal at 0.9%, though a recipe without a poured-in fish oil delivers it in a smaller helping.

The joint additions are the clearest sign this is a senior recipe. Glucosamine at 0.04%, MSM at 0.04% and chondroitin at 0.029% each carry a percentage, with green lipped mussel extract at 0.05% behind them. Green lipped mussel is the usual shellfish choice where stiffness is the trouble. Having all four in one bowl is more than most mature foods bother with.

The fibre is beet pulp at 8%. Gut bacteria live on the prebiotic chicory root extract at 0.05%, and seaweed meal at 0.1% brings iodine. Yucca extract at 0.02% is there for what comes out at the far end. Ash reads 10.0%. Fish meal is what puts the minerals and bone in there.

The declaration prints vitamin A at 25,500IU, vitamin E at 417 mg and L-carnitine at 25 mg. Iron at 28 mg, copper at 3.5 mg, manganese at 17.5 mg, iodine at 1.05 mg and selenium at 0.14 mg per kilo follow. Zinc arrives twice, 49 mg as zinc oxide and 35 mg as a chelate of protein hydrolysates. The chelated portion is absorbed most readily, and on an older dog that matters for skin and coat.

£6.50 a kilo, sold in a 2kg bag.

On the usual reference, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat around 250 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), or £1.62 a day. For a dog of 12kg to 25kg the label's own guide asks 175 to 300 grams a day. The waistline breaks the tie.