Hill's Prescription Diet i/d Dog Food — dry (with Chicken) review

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, meat and animal derivatives (chicken 7%), eggs and egg derivatives, vegetable protein extracts, oils and fats, derivatives of vegetable origin, minerals, fruit, seeds. ActivBiome+ Digestion prebiotic blend (4%): Ground pecan shell, dried beet pulp, flaxseed, dried citrus pulp, dried cranberries. Highly digestible ingredients: Maize, broken rice, dried eggs, maize protein meal, animal fat, vegetable oil, fish oil.

Cereals come first, with meat and animal derivatives and chicken at 7% behind them, then eggs and egg derivatives, vegetable protein extracts, oils and fats, derivatives of vegetable origin, minerals, fruit and seeds. Hill's then spells out the ingredients it calls highly digestible: maize, broken rice, dried eggs, maize protein meal, animal fat, vegetable oil and fish oil. Maize appearing twice, once as the grain and once as a protein meal, is a fair part of where the kibble gets its structure.

ActivBiome+ Digestion, the prebiotic blend, accounts for 4% of the food. The packet says exactly what is in it: dried beet pulp, dried cranberries, dried citrus pulp, flaxseed and ground pecan shell. Hill's builds this part of the range around fibre aimed at gut bacteria rather than at the dog, and here it is printed with a figure beside it.

Between chicken at 7%, the dried eggs and the fish oil, three animal inputs are named outright while the leading meat entry names none. Anyone keeping a dog clear of chicken or of fish will want that in front of them before the first bowl goes down. The practice can say whether it matters for the plan your dog is on.

Protein is declared at 23.4% and reads 25.4% of dry matter, fat 13.2% as fed and 14.3% dry. Crude fibre is 1.9%, ash 5.6%, the carbohydrate estimate 52.1% of dry matter and energy 360 kcal per 100g. A fat level held around that mark is characteristic of a recipe written for digestive work, so it is context for the vet's advice rather than a reading to take on its own.

Doses are printed for the added minerals, 87.8mg iron, 3.0mg iodine, 9.5mg copper, 9.1mg manganese, 145mg zinc and 0.1mg selenium, with a natural antioxidant at the end. The feeding table opens at 60 grams a day for a 2.5kg dog, gives 175 grams at 10kg and closes at 495 grams for a 40kg dog. That puts a 15kg dog at roughly 233 grams a day.

Bags are listed at 1.5kg, 4kg, 12kg and 16kg.