Hill's Prescription Diet Metabolic + Mobility Weight Management Dog Food review

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and animal derivatives, derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals, oils and fats, eggs and egg derivatives, vegetables, minerals, vegetable protein extracts, molluscs and crustaceans.

Not one species is named anywhere on this label. It opens with meat and animal derivatives, then derivatives of vegetable origin and cereals, with oils and fats, eggs and egg derivatives, vegetables, minerals, vegetable protein extracts, and molluscs and crustaceans behind them. Egg is the only animal ingredient a reader can actually put a name to.

For a dog on a restricted list, that has a straightforward consequence. The meat could be any warm-blooded species and the pack will not say which. That rules out running an exclusion trial from this label alone. The molluscs and crustaceans entry is the joint-facing one, shellfish being the usual carrier for glucosamine in a recipe built this way.

Moisture is declared at 75.0%, which makes the dry matter conversions the more useful read. Protein at 7.2% as fed becomes 28.8%, fat at 3.6% becomes 14.4%, and crude fibre at 3.8% becomes 15.2%, with the carbohydrate estimate at 8.8% as fed and 35.2% of dry matter. Energy comes in at 86 kcal per 100g. That is light for a wet food, and it is exactly what a diet meant to take weight off a dog is aiming for.

On the mineral side, calcium works out at 0.88% once water is out of the equation. The dosed additions are itemised as iron at 14.3mg, iodine at 0.5mg, copper at 2.4mg, manganese at 3.2mg and zinc at 36.9mg, and no selenium appears in that panel.

The pack's own table runs from 98 grams a day for a 1kg dog to 395 grams at 10kg and 955 grams at 50kg. The larger the dog, the more packs a day it takes. Whether the wet form, the kibble or a mix of the two suits your dog best is a conversation with your vet, who is the one holding the target weight in mind.

It is sold in 370g packs, at £7.11 a kilo.