Hill's Prescription Diet Derm Complete Dry Dog Food Original review

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, oils and fats (fish oil 1.8%), eggs and egg derivatives, meat and animal derivatives, vegetable protein extracts, seeds, minerals, derivatives of vegetable origin, vegetables, fruit. Carbohydrate sources: Broken rice, brown rice. Protein sources: Dried whole eggs, rice protein.

The list works in category terms and names no species. Cereals lead, then oils and fats with fish oil pulled out at 1.8%, followed by eggs and egg derivatives, meat and animal derivatives, vegetable protein extracts, seeds, minerals, derivatives of vegetable origin, vegetables and fruit. Beneath that Hill's does name the two entries that carry the recipe, giving broken rice and brown rice as the carbohydrate and dried whole eggs with rice protein as the protein.

For anyone working through an exclusion plan, what is named and what is not both matter. Egg and rice are stated outright. Fish arrives as an oil rather than as flesh, so it brings fat without putting fish protein in the bowl, though it still means fish is in the food. The meat and animal derivatives entry commits to no animal at all, which leaves one line on the label that the packet alone will not resolve for you.

Protein reads 16.9% on the packet and converts to 18.4% of dry matter, with fat at 15.2% as fed and 16.5% on the same basis. Crude fibre is 1.4% and ash 5.4%, the carbohydrate estimate lands at 57.7% of dry matter, and energy is declared at 376 kcal per 100g. A protein figure at that level follows from restricting the recipe to egg and rice. It is how a diet of this kind is built, not a shortfall on the packet.

The added minerals are printed with a dose beside each one, iron at 77.5mg, iodine at 1.9mg, copper at 7.6mg, manganese at 8.0mg, zinc at 136mg and selenium at 0.2mg. A natural antioxidant closes the list.

The label's own table starts at 60 grams a day for a 2.5kg dog, reads 170 grams at 10kg and finishes at 480 grams for a 40kg dog. Portions on a therapeutic diet are normally set by the practice that put your dog on it, so the table is a starting point and the instruction from your vet sits above it.

It comes in 1.5kg, 4kg and 12kg bags, at £7.70 a kilo. Reading the label's guide across to a 15kg dog gives around 224 grams a day, which puts the daily figure at £1.72.