James Wellbeloved Senior Dog Lamb & Rice

A dog's immune system doesn't get more sensitive with age so much as it runs out of patience with what it has already been eating for a decade. Ingredients tolerated at three can start causing trouble at nine, which is why a senior recipe built around excluding the common triggers is worth more than one built around a life-stage label alone.

This is James Wellbeloved's hypoallergenic senior formula, built on lamb and rice rather than the beef, pork, soya, egg and dairy that most sensitivities are traced back to. Brown rice makes up the largest single ingredient at 26%, with dried lamb protein next at 19.5%, alongside naked oats, barley, white rice, whole linseed and a run of natural extracts including chicory, yucca and seaweed. Glucosamine and chondroitin are both included at trace levels, aimed at joints rather than digestion.

• Protein 18.5%, fat content 9.2%
• Crude fibre 3.5%, crude ash 7.8%
• Vitamin E at 400mg/kg
• Glucosamine at 0.045% and chondroitin at 0.005%
• Excludes beef, pork, soya, eggs, dairy and wheat
• 2KG bag

On the grain-free question. This is not a grain-free food, despite excluding wheat: naked oats, barley and rice all appear in the ingredients list. If a dog's sensitivity is to grains generally rather than to wheat specifically, this recipe will not solve it.

Who it's for: owners of a senior dog who reacts to common proteins or dairy, and who want the excluded ingredients named on the label rather than left to a vague 'sensitive' claim.