Hill's Prescription Diet Gastrointestinal Biome Wet Dog Food with Chicken review

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and animal derivatives (chicken 6%), cereals, derivatives of vegetable origin, oils and fats, minerals, fruit, seeds, vegetables. Highly digestible ingredients: Pork liver, chicken, rice, animal fat, fish oil, vegetable oil. ActivBiome+ prebiotic blend (3.2%): Ground pecan shell, flaxseed, dried citrus pulp, dried beet pulp, dried cranberries.

Meat and animal derivatives lead, with chicken pulled out at 6%, and cereals, derivatives of vegetable origin, oils and fats, minerals, fruit, seeds and vegetables follow. Hill's lists what it calls the highly digestible part on its own: pork liver, chicken, rice, animal fat, fish oil and vegetable oil. Pork liver leads that group, a fair sign of where much of the animal content sits.

The ActivBiome+ prebiotic blend is declared at 3.2% and broken out ingredient by ingredient, ground pecan shell, flaxseed, dried citrus pulp, dried beet pulp and dried cranberries. Fibre of that sort is aimed at the bacteria in the gut rather than at the dog directly, and its share shows in the analysis.

Crude fibre reads 1.9% in the pack and 7.3% once the water comes out, a level written into this recipe on purpose rather than a by product of it. Protein is 5.1% as fed and 19.6% of dry matter, fat 3.6% and 13.8%, ash 1.9% and 7.3%, against declared moisture of 74.0%. Carbohydrate is estimated at 13.5% as fed, 52.0% dry, and the pack declares 97 kcal per 100g.

Three animals turn up between the named entries, chicken at 6%, pork through the liver and fish through the oil, on top of an opening line that names none of them. That is worth having clear in your head if the plan your vet has drawn up rules any of those out.

The dosed trace minerals read 17.8mg iron, 0.6mg iodine, 2.9mg copper, 3.9mg manganese and 45.9mg zinc, and calcium comes back at 1.12% of dry matter. The label's table asks for 98 grams a day at 1kg, 450 grams at 10kg and 1145 grams at 50kg. On a gut case both the amount and the speed of the changeover belong to the vet.

Packs are 200g and 370g, and the price per kilo is £9.86. At the guide's rate for a 15kg dog, about 870 grams a day, the daily figure is £8.57.