Burns Adult/Senior Dogs Sensitive Grain Free Turkey & Pototo

When a dog does badly on its food, the instinct is to buy something fancier. Quite often the thing that helps is the opposite — fewer ingredients, so that if something still does not agree with them there is a short list to work through rather than a long one.

This recipe has six things in it: potato at 46%, buckwheat at 27%, turkey meal at 20%, turkey fat, seaweed and minerals. Turkey is the only meat in it, which is what a single-source protein means in practice, and buckwheat is there as the fibre and the slow-release energy. Crude protein is 18.5% and crude fats 8%, with crude fibre 2% and crude ash 7%. Omega-6 fatty acids come out at 2.21% and omega-3 at 0.22%, and Burns add taurine at 1000mg per kg. It is formulated as a complete food for adult and senior dogs of any breed, without grain, gluten or dairy.

• Complete dry food for adult and senior dogs, 2KG bag
• Potato 46%, buckwheat 27%, turkey meal 20%, turkey fat, seaweed, minerals
• Crude protein 18.5%, crude fats 8%, crude fibre 2%, crude ash 7%
• Calcium 1.2%, phosphorus 0.85%, sodium 0.18%, potassium 0.5%
• Omega-6 2.21%, omega-3 0.22%, taurine 1000mg/kg
• Formulated without grain, gluten or dairy

On that 18.5% protein figure. It is modest for a dry dog food and turkey meal is third by weight, behind the potato and the buckwheat — a deliberate choice on a limited-ingredient recipe rather than a corner cut, but it does mean this is not the bag to buy if you are after a high-meat food. Worth knowing too: Burns' own product copy describes it as containing wholegrains, on a bag they also label grain free. The composition itself lists no cereal at all, so read the composition and not the blurb.

Who it's for: owners of an adult or older dog with an unreliable stomach or itchy skin, especially anyone working through an elimination process who needs a food with as few things in it as possible to rule in or out.