Hill's Prescription Diet i/d Stress Wet Dog Food with Chicken review

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and animal derivatives (chicken 1%), cereals, derivatives of vegetable origin, eggs and egg derivatives, minerals, seeds, oils and fats, vegetables, fruit, milk and milk derivatives. Highly digestible ingredients: Pork, rice, rice flour, maize, chicken, dried eggs, vegetable oil, fish oil, milk protein hydrolysate. ActivBiome+ Prebiotic blend (1.8%): Dried beet pulp, flaxseed, ground pecan shell, dried citrus pulp, dried cranberries.

Chicken is on the front of the tin and declared at 1% inside the meat and animal derivatives entry, so the name is describing the flavour rather than the bulk of the meat. The fuller cast is in a second list. Hill's names the highly digestible ingredients there as pork, rice, rice flour, maize, chicken, dried eggs, vegetable oil, fish oil and milk protein hydrolysate.

Pork heads that list, which makes this a mixed protein tin rather than a poultry one. Before the category entries are even opened up, the recipe already draws on pork, chicken, egg, fish and dairy, and an owner using it inside an exclusion plan needs that in front of them.

The milk protein hydrolysate is the entry the Stress recipes are known for. Hydrolysis cuts a protein into fragments, and makers use it where a whole protein might provoke a reaction. Here the ingredient sits in the digestible list without a percentage of its own. The pack does not tell you how much of it is in there.

Hill's puts the ActivBiome+ prebiotic blend at a declared 1.8%. Dried beet pulp and flaxseed come first in it, followed by ground pecan shell, and dried citrus pulp with dried cranberries at the end. On the analysis, protein converts to 25.3% of dry matter and fat to 8.2%, the carbohydrate estimate to 58.3%, with energy at 95 kcal per 100g and moisture declared at 74.3%. That combination of restrained fat and generous starch is what a maker aims for in a gentle tinned diet. Read it as the recipe's brief.

With the water taken out, calcium reads 0.78% and crude ash 6.2%. Each added trace element carries its own dose, zinc the largest at 33.4mg. The feeding guide is a short one, 100 grams a day at 1kg of body weight, 400 grams at 5kg and 800 grams at 12kg, stopping there because the tin is meant for smaller dogs. Whatever number your vet gives you replaces all of them, and so does their view on whether the food fits your dog.

It comes as a 200g tin.