Hill's Prescription Diet i/d Low Fat Dog Food review

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, meat and animal derivatives (chicken 9%), vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, oils and fats, seeds, minerals, vegetables (ginger 1%), fruit. Highly digestible ingredients: Broken rice, chicken and turkey meal, maize gluten meal, animal fat. ActivBiome+ prebiotic blend (7.5%): Dried beet pulp, flaxseed, ground pecan shell, dried citrus pulp, dried cranberries.

Cereals head the list, with meat and animal derivatives next and chicken given a figure of 9% inside that entry. Vegetable protein extracts follow, then derivatives of vegetable origin, oils and fats, seeds and minerals. The named version of the recipe arrives lower down, where Hill's sets out broken rice, chicken and turkey meal, maize gluten meal and animal fat as the ingredients it calls highly digestible.

Maize gluten meal is a protein concentrate left over from maize processing, used to lift a protein figure where a maker would otherwise need more meat. Turkey travels with the chicken in a single meal entry, so a dog being kept off poultry meets both birds in one line.

Ginger is pinned at 1% inside the vegetables entry, an oddly precise declaration on a label that otherwise talks in categories, and fruit closes the list without further detail.

Hill's declares the ActivBiome+ prebiotic blend at 7.5%, itemising it as flaxseed, dried citrus pulp, ground pecan shell, dried cranberries and dried beet pulp. Fibre at that weight has a real presence in the recipe rather than sitting near the bottom as a flourish.

Protein converts to 25.9% of dry matter and fat to 8.9%, crude fibre to 2.3% and the carbohydrate estimate to 57.0%, with energy at 334 kcal per 100g. The fat figure is the name of the food doing what it says, and the starch that fills the gap is the reason the carbohydrate estimate reads high. Those are label facts rather than marks against everyday kibble, which is built to a different brief.

The added mineral panel is printed dose by dose, iron at 68.1mg and zinc at 119mg among the larger entries, selenium at 0.2mg among the smallest, with a natural antioxidant closing it out. The bag's guide begins at 35 grams a day for a 1kg dog and reaches 630 grams at 50kg, showing 315 grams at 20kg along the way. Take those as the maker's starting point; the amount your dog actually eats, and whether this food is right for the case at all, belongs to your vet.

It comes in 1.5kg, 4kg and 12kg bags, at £5.73 a kilo. A 15kg dog eating 251 grams a day, which is where the label's guide lands for that weight, works out at about £1.44 a day.