Hill's Prescription Diet i/d Stress Mini Dog Food review

Ingredients, as declared: Cereals, meat and animal derivatives (chicken 9%), vegetable protein extracts, derivatives of vegetable origin, oils and fats (fish oil 0.5%), seeds, minerals, vegetables (ginger 1%), fruit, milk and milk derivatives (milk protein hydrolysate 0.1%). Highly digestible ingredients: Broken rice, chicken and turkey meal, maize gluten meal, animal fat, fish oil. ActivBiome+ prebiotic blend (7.5%): Dried beet pulp, flaxseed, ground pecan shell, dried citrus pulp, dried cranberries.

Cereals open the label. Meat and animal derivatives come second with chicken written in at 9%, and vegetable protein extracts and derivatives of vegetable origin follow. The oils and fats entry carries a declaration of its own, fish oil at 0.5%. Names appear only in the second list Hill's prints, where broken rice, chicken and turkey meal, maize gluten meal, animal fat and fish oil are set out as the highly digestible ingredients.

Two small declarations mark this recipe out from the plainer i/d kibbles. Ginger is named at 1% inside the vegetables entry, and milk protein hydrolysate at 0.1% inside milk and milk derivatives. Hydrolysing a protein cuts it into fragments, and makers reach for that where an intact protein might be met with a reaction. At the level printed here it is a token inclusion rather than a protein source the recipe leans on.

The poultry meal brings chicken and turkey, the fish oil brings fish and the milk fragment brings dairy. That is four animal sources in a food a sensitive dog may be moving onto, and the category entries at the top could carry more again. Whether any of that matters for yours is a question for the vet holding the case, not one the pack can answer.

Protein converts to 26.0% of dry matter and fat to 8.8%, crude fibre to 2.4% and the carbohydrate estimate to 56.8%, with energy at 334 kcal per 100g. Fat held at that level, with starch carrying the energy in its place, is how a digestive kibble of this kind is deliberately built. The figure is a design choice on the label rather than something missing from it.

The ActivBiome+ prebiotic blend is declared at 7.5%. It is broken out as dried beet pulp and flaxseed, then ground pecan shell, then dried citrus pulp with dried cranberries. The added minerals run dose by dose from iron at 74.0mg through zinc at 130mg, with selenium at 0.2mg and a natural antioxidant at the end of the panel.

The bag's guide covers far more ground than a small dog food usually needs, opening at 35 grams a day for a 1kg dog and continuing to 630 grams at 50kg. The rows in the middle are the ones most owners of a mini kibble will use, 110 grams at 5kg and 190 grams at 10kg. Even those are the maker's estimate, and on a prescription food the amount, along with the decision to feed it, sits with your vet.

It is sold in 3kg and 6kg bags.