Hill's Prescription Diet i/d Sensitive Dog Food review

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals (broken rice 31%), eggs and egg derivatives (dried eggs 18%), vegetable protein extracts, oils and fats, derivatives of vegetable origin, meat and animal derivatives, minerals, fruit, seeds. ActivBiome+ Digestion prebiotic blend (4%): Ground pecan shell, dried beet pulp, flaxseed, dried citrus pulp, dried cranberries. Highly digestible ingredients: Broken rice, dried eggs, maize protein meal, animal fat, vegetable oil. Protein sources: Dried eggs, maize protein meal. Carbohydrate sources: Broken rice, barley, oats.

Two entries near the top carry real figures. Broken rice is declared at 31% inside cereals and dried eggs at 18% inside eggs and egg derivatives, which is more precision than most of this label offers. Hill's then states its protein sources outright as dried eggs and maize protein meal, so egg is the animal protein the recipe is built on and maize is the plant protein backing it up.

No meat is named anywhere on the pack. Meat and animal derivatives sit sixth on the list, below vegetable protein extracts and oils and fats, with no species attached, and animal fat appears in the digestible list on the same terms. Egg and maize can be identified from the label. That unnamed animal fraction cannot. Put it to your vet before an exclusion plan rests on this pack.

The carbohydrate side is spelled out in a way the opening word cereals does not prepare you for: broken rice, barley and oats, each named. The ActivBiome+ Digestion blend sits alongside them, declared at 4%. Hill's breaks it into ground pecan shell, then dried beet pulp and flaxseed, then dried citrus pulp and dried cranberries. That fibre is there for the gut bacteria, not to nourish the dog directly.

Protein converts to 26.1% of dry matter and fat to 19.9%, crude fibre reads 3.4% and the carbohydrate estimate 44.3%, with energy at 381 kcal per 100g. Fat sits higher here than in the low fat members of the i/d line. That is a deliberate setting for a food meant to be fed to dogs who need the calories in a small volume.

Each added mineral carries its own dose on the label: iron at 104mg, iodine at 4.6mg, copper at 12.2mg, manganese at 10.8mg and zinc at 162mg. A natural antioxidant is listed at the end.

The label's guide runs from 60 grams a day at 2.5kg of body weight to 470 grams at 40kg, with 165 grams shown at 10kg. The row for the heaviest dogs reads oddly in the information we hold, so treat the printed pack as the reference for it. In any case the figure that governs feeding on a diet of this sort is the one your vet writes down, and so is the decision to use it.

It is sold in 4kg and 12kg bags.