Wolf Of Wilderness Dry Senior review

Our scoring puts this recipe in the Good band, the same band where the typical adult dry food comes to rest. Its transparency pillar reads Outstanding while protein and processing reads Good and nutritional balance Average, and that split describes the food nicely. The label is specific about nearly everything that matters, and unusually for this brand it declares its moisture rather than leaving us to assume it, so the dry matter figures here are firmer than most. The analysis itself is simply gentle, with protein at 25.0% of dry matter and carbohydrate at 49.0%. For a settled older dog who eats well and no longer runs marathons, gentle is rather the point.

Ingredients, as declared: Freh chicken meat (26%), potato flakes, peas, chicken protein (9%), dried apple pulp, lamb protein (4%), partially dried and hydrolysed poultry protein (4%), linseeds, poultry fat (3%), brewer's yeast, hydrolysed liver (2%), salmon oil, pea meal, dried sea buckthorn (0.2%), dried wild berries (0.1% blueberries, 0.1% cranberries), dried wild herbs (0.1% thyme, 0.1% rosemary), dried ginger root (0.1%), glucosamine, chondroitin sulphate, mannan-oligosaccharides, inulin, Mojave yucca.

Fresh chicken at 26% is the first thing on the list. Fresh is a word to read with the oven in mind, since a good deal of that weight is water that will not survive baking. The dried support behind it is spread across chicken protein at 9%, lamb protein at 4% and a partially dried, hydrolysed poultry protein at 4%, with hydrolysed liver at 2% after that. Add it up and the finished food converts to 25.0% protein on a dry matter basis, which is a mild figure by kibble standards and a comfortable one for most older dogs.

Potato flakes and peas do the binding, dried apple pulp adds a little more, and no cereal appears at all. Fibre converts to 4.3% of dry matter, higher than most dry foods manage, which tends to suit an older gut that has become less predictable than it used to be.

The senior thinking here is genuine. Glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate are both on the list, and taurine arrives at 1500 mg, the amino acid most often reached for when an ageing heart is on your mind. Mannan-oligosaccharides with inulin cover the prebiotic side. Sea buckthorn at 0.2% and ginger root at 0.1% sit in the tail, and Mojave yucca is there for the reason it usually is, which is to make the garden a slightly pleasanter place.

Calcium works out at 1.2% of dry matter, a sensible adult and senior level. The trace minerals are declared as amino acid chelates: copper at 12 mg, zinc at 70 mg, manganese at 40 mg and iodine at 1 mg per kilo. Chelated forms are chosen because a dog's gut generally absorbs them more readily than the plain sulphates, and an ageing gut is exactly where that helps.

The one honest limitation is that some of the animal content keeps its family name rather than its species. Chicken, duck, goose or turkey would all fit the hydrolysed poultry protein and the poultry fat, and the hydrolysed liver is not pinned down either. For most dogs this makes no odds, and the palatant is doing a real job for an older appetite. It only matters if you are working to pin a reaction on one particular bird.

£3.79 a kilo.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition eats about 221 grams a day, which comes to £0.84, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Older dogs are usually quieter than that estimate assumes, so start a little under it and let the waistline tell you the rest.