Hill's Science Plan Adult 1+ Healthy Mobility Small & Mini review

Our scoring returns Average here, a step under the Good band that marks the middle of the adult dry category. Most of that distance comes from three cereals sitting ahead of the named meat, and from a carbohydrate estimate that runs over the usual dry food figure. Transparency, the pillar that rewards candour, reads Good, and it is earned: percentages against the meat and the fish oil, doses against every mineral. None of it stops the food doing what a small stiffening dog needs it to do.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, maize, broken rice, chicken and turkey meal (chicken 7%; total poultry 11%), barley, oats, digest, animal fat, maize protein meal, flaxseed, fish oil (1.8%), vegetable oil, minerals, pea bran meal, oat bran, fructo-oligosaccharides.

The grain list is longer here than in the bigger bags. Wheat, maize and broken rice take the first three places, and barley and oats follow just behind the meat. Of the five, barley and oats are the better company. They bring soluble fibre and a slower release of energy once cooked, though cereal is still the main event in this recipe.

Chicken and turkey meal comes fourth at 7% chicken and 11% total poultry. It counts for something that both birds are named. A meal is dry by the time it goes in, so the declared figure holds up better than a fresh meat percentage would. It is still a small share of the bag.

Fish oil at 1.8% is where the mobility name earns itself. It is the usual route to the marine omega 3s owners look for when an older dog is stiffening up, and having it declared with a number against it is better than many labels manage. Flaxseed adds the plant version. No glucosamine or chondroitin dose is printed anywhere, so the oils are the whole of the joint story here.

Digest and animal fat both go unnamed. Digest is the palatant, and on a recipe this lean it is doing a job worth having, because a small dog that leaves half the bowl helps nobody. Neither entry names a species, and that is the one real limit on this label. That only bites when you set out to identify what your dog reacts to.

The analysis lands gentle. Protein converts to 21.3% of dry matter, fat to 14.6% and fibre to 2.4%, with estimated carbohydrate at 57.0% against 46.2% for the typical adult dry food, and calcium at 0.66% of dry matter. Oat bran and fructo-oligosaccharides sit at the end as a prebiotic pairing. The trace minerals all carry a figure. Zinc is at 136 mg per kilo, iron at 77.7 mg, manganese at 8.0 mg, copper at 7.7 mg, iodine at 1.9 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg.

Sold as a 1.5kg bag.

For portioning, the standard maintenance estimate of 110 kcal × bodyweight^0.75 works out at about 229 grams a day for a 15kg adult in moderate condition. A dog that size sits well above what this bag is aimed at. The label's own table is the more useful guide for the target dog, asking 105 grams at 5kg and 175 grams at 10kg.