Wildways Senior Dry review

The chicken recipe and the Beef with Buffalo both finish in our Excellent band, a step clear of the Good band that the middle of the adult dry shelf occupies. What separates them is mostly the amount each label is prepared to declare. The beef prints its moisture and its calcium, so the dry matter column can be read and not estimated. Its carbohydrate works out at 42.3% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical for adult dry food. The chicken recipe answers with the higher protein of the two, converting to 31.5% of dry matter. Either way, both are meat-forward recipes for a dog past the sprinting years.

Ingredients, as declared: Fresh Chicken (40%), Chicken Protein (26%), Peas (10%), Salmon Protein (4%), Chickpeas (4%), Pumpkin (4%), Dried Apple Pulp (4%), Poultry Fat (3%), Chicken Liver (2%), Salmon Oil (1%), Eggs Shells (1%), Pea Flour, Glucosamine (0.026%), Chondroitin Sulphate (0.018%), Mannan-oligosaccharides (0.015%), Inulin (a source of Fructo-oligosaccharides, 0.01%), Yucca Mojave (0.01%), Dried Milk Thistle (0.01%), Dried Rosemary (0.003%), Dried Curcuma (0.003%)

Fresh meat at 40% opens both lists, though a good deal of that 40% is water that goes in the oven. What stays in the finished kibble is the dried protein behind it, and there is plenty here. Chicken protein runs at 26% in one bag, with beef protein at 16% and buffalo protein at 14% in the other.

The senior tuning shows in the fat. The chicken bag holds fat at 12% and the beef 13%, both gentler than the brand's adult food, and the protein is held up. That is the sensible way round for an older dog whose appetite for exercise has faded faster than their appetite for dinner.

The joint entries are declared with figures on both labels, glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate in each, with mannan oligosaccharides and inulin behind them for the gut. Taurine, the amino acid known for its work in the heart, is printed at 1,500mg in the chicken bag and 2,500mg in the beef.

Salmon shows up twice over. Both bags take their marine omega from salmon oil at 1%, and the chicken recipe adds salmon protein at 4%. It follows that neither bag suits a dog kept off fish. Poultry fat names a bird family without pinning down the species, and it is in both recipes.

Egg shells supply the calcium, dried apple pulp and pumpkin add the fruit and vegetable side, and milk thistle, yucca, rosemary and curcuma close the list at trace level. Lignocellulose at 4% goes into the beef recipe as well. It is purified plant fibre. That means bulk without calories, and on a food for dogs doing less that is a fair thing to find.

The chicken bag, built on fresh chicken at 40% and chicken protein at 26%, with salmon protein at 4% adding a second animal and chicken liver at 2% keeping it appetising. At 29% this is the higher protein of the two bags, and at 12% the lower fat. That protein converts to 31.5% of dry matter. It declares no moisture, so its dry matter figures use the 8% assumption.

Both recipes are £4.58 a kilo from the 12kg bag and £7.00 a kilo from the 2kg.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 230 grams a day of the chicken recipe and 242 grams of the beef. That assumes around 840 kcal a day, on the standard maintenance estimate of 110 × bodyweight^0.75. From the 12kg bag that works out at £1.05 a day and £1.11 a day in the same order. The labels themselves ask for quite different amounts: 140 to 250 grams of the chicken and 210 to 355 grams of the beef for a dog between 12kg and 25kg. Let the waistline settle it.