Hill's Prescription Diet On-Care Stew for Dogs review

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and animal derivatives (chicken 10%), derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals, oils and fats, vegetables (1.6%), vegetable protein extracts, minerals, fruit, eggs and egg derivatives, seeds. Highly digestible ingredients: Pork liver, chicken, rice starch, rice flour, digest, wheat gluten, vegetable oil, rice, fish oil, coconut oil, dried eggs, animal fat.

Chicken is printed at 10% inside the opening meat and animal derivatives entry. Derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals, oils and fats, vegetables at 1.6%, vegetable protein extracts, minerals, fruit, eggs and egg derivatives and seeds follow it down the list.

Below that, Hill's names the ingredients it groups as highly digestible, and this is the most informative part of the pack. The block reads pork liver, chicken, rice starch, rice flour, digest, wheat gluten, vegetable oil, rice, fish oil, coconut oil, dried eggs and animal fat. Pork liver at the head of that block is telling. Liver is dense in nutrients, and to a dog who has lost interest in food it is about as tempting as an ingredient gets.

The other side of all that detail is a broad allergen picture. Pork, chicken, fish, egg and wheat are all in the recipe. Where a dog has a reaction on record to any of them, the vet's read comes before the first pack is opened.

Moisture is declared at 79.5%. Converted to dry matter, protein at 6.6% reads 32.2% and fat at 5.0% reads 24.4%. That is a rich profile for a wet food, and deliberately so where calories need to go in without much volume behind them. Crude fibre is minimal at 0.5% as fed, or 2.2% of dry matter, the carbohydrate estimate is 7.2% as fed and 35.3% of dry matter, and energy is 91 kcal per 100g.

Calcium reads 0.88% of the dry matter. Iron is dosed at 22.0mg, iodine at 0.8mg, copper at 3.3mg, manganese at 2.4mg and zinc at 28.0mg, and potassium alginate at 5g holds the sauce together, a texture job rather than a nutritional one.

The pack's guide runs from 99 grams a day at 1kg to 429 grams at 10kg and 1068 grams at 50kg, which for a big dog means several packs daily. Where a dog is eating less than the plan asks for, the practice will often set something different again, and their instruction outranks the table on the pack.

It comes in 354g packs.