Hill's Science Plan Adult Dog Stew with Chicken & added Vegetables review

Texture does not move our scoring. This tin is read on the same terms as any other: what the label declares, what the analysis says, and how much of the recipe is left to trust. A great deal is left to trust here. Three of the four pillars come back Good, and the tin settles in our Average band, while the typical adult wet food is an Excellent band food.

What makes up that gap is worth spelling out. Nothing about it is spoilage or deficiency, and there is nothing in the recipe to feel nervous about. It is a composition of eight entries with a printed figure against two of them, on a food from a maker whose nutritional standards are set in a laboratory rather than on the pack. If your dog eats this happily and looks well on it, the reading is not a reason to change anything.

Ingredients, as declared: Meat and animal derivatives (chicken 8%), derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals, vegetables (1.7%), oils and fats, eggs and egg derivatives, various sugars, minerals.

The list runs meat and animal derivatives with chicken at 8%, then derivatives of vegetable origin, cereals, vegetables at 1.7%, oils and fats, eggs and egg derivatives, various sugars and minerals. Chicken and the vegetables are the two entries with a number beside them. The others are legal categories, each covering a wide range of possible materials and each free to shift between batches without the wording changing.

The order tells you something. Derivatives of vegetable origin comes in ahead of the cereals, which puts a large and unspecified plant fraction high in the recipe. The estimated carbohydrate of 44.1% of dry matter is where that shows up. By the standards of its own shelf this is a starchy tin, since the typical adult wet food runs at 15.8%.

Egg is the one entry here that is unambiguously good news and unambiguously identifiable. Eggs bring high quality protein along with fat and a useful spread of micronutrients, and they are one of the more digestible protein sources a dog can be given. The label does not say how much is in the tin, so treat it as a contributor to the recipe.

What the analysis can show, it shows. Protein converts to 27.7% of dry matter and fat to 19.1%, which makes this a richer serve than a plain adult loaf and a good deal easier to get into a dog that picks. Energy is 91 kcal per 100g, a little under the 97 kcal typical for adult wet food, and moisture is declared at 78.0%.

Calcium converts to 0.91% of dry matter, comfortable for an adult dog. Iron, iodine, copper, manganese and zinc are each added with a printed dose beside them, so the mineral end of the recipe is the one part you can check line by line.

Near the end of the list come various sugars. In a stew, sweetness is doing much the same job as the sauce itself, making the meal more appealing. It is a reasonable trade for an owner whose dog has been leaving food, and less appealing to anyone keeping sugar out of the bowl on principle.

£6.08 a kilo, sold in a 363 g pack.

As a guide, feeding a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition works out at about 926 grams a day and around £5.63, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). A tin like this is often served alongside a dry meal, which changes that arithmetic considerably.