Hill's Prescription Diet i/d Dog Food — canned (with Turkey) review

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and animal derivatives (turkey 5%), cereals, eggs and egg derivatives, oils and fats, minerals, derivatives of vegetable origin, seeds, fruit. ActivBiome+ Digestion prebiotic blend (1.3%): Ground pecan shell, dried beet pulp, flaxseed, dried citrus pulp, dried cranberries.

Meat and animal derivatives open the tin with turkey named at 5%, and then come cereals, eggs and egg derivatives, oils and fats, minerals, derivatives of vegetable origin, seeds and fruit. The label commits to turkey and no other species, so everything of animal origin beyond that named 5% is described by category alone. Egg is the other animal input named outright.

Hill's declares its ActivBiome+ Digestion blend at 1.3% and prints what goes into it: ground pecan shell, dried beet pulp, flaxseed, dried citrus pulp and dried cranberries. The maker presents that as its prebiotic package, fibre chosen to feed gut bacteria, and on this recipe it is a named but small share of the tin.

In the tin, protein reads 6.9%, fat 4.3%, crude fibre 0.4% and ash 1.6%, against declared moisture of 74.0%. With the water out, those read 26.5% protein, 16.5% fat, 1.6% fibre and 6.2% ash. Carbohydrate is estimated at 12.8% as fed and 49.2% of dry matter. Energy is 102 kcal per 100g, and calcium settles at 0.81% of the dry matter.

Fibre is where this parts company with the biome recipe in the same range, which carries far more of it. Keeping it low is the shape a recovery feed usually takes, and which of the two your dog wants is a decision to leave with the vet who has examined him.

The mineral doses are printed as 12.0mg iron, 0.4mg iodine, 3.2mg copper, 2.6mg manganese and 30.9mg zinc. Feeding starts at 125 grams a day for a 2.5kg dog, sits at 430 grams by 10kg and reaches 1005 grams at 40kg, with a 15kg dog falling near 825 grams on that scale. A dog coming back onto food is usually moved along it at the practice's pace.

It is sold in 200g and 360g tins.