Hill's Science Plan Hypoallergenic Medium Adult Dog Food with Salmon review

Bands are easier to read once you know what drives them, and here the driver is the ratio. Dried potatoes at 21%, potato starch and dried peas all sit ahead of a 9% salmon meal, which leaves protein at 21.6% of dry matter and estimated carbohydrate at 55.5%. That combination lands the food in our Average band, a step below the Good band where the middle of the adult dry shelf sits. It is worth saying plainly that a specialist recipe is being measured on a general scale. Nothing in the analysis is out of order for a healthy adult dog, and the ingredient list is doing the narrowing job it was designed to do.

Ingredients, as declared: Dried potatoes (21%), potato starch, dried peas, salmon meal (9%), pea protein, animal fat, digest, vegetable oil, minerals, dried beet pulp, flaxseed, dried carrots, dried tomato pomace, dried citrus pulp, spinach powder.

The first three entries are all plant: dried potatoes at 21%, potato starch and dried peas. Potato starch is what holds a grain free kibble in shape, so part of that job is engineering. Whole peas at least bring fibre and a spread of nutrients along with their starch.

Next comes salmon meal at 9%, and no other animal is named. As a meal it has already been dried, so it is concentrated fish with the water gone, and it carries the marine omega 3s a coat can put straight to work. Protein finishes at 21.6% of dry matter, gentler than a meat led kibble, and pea protein just behind the salmon is quietly adding to that figure from the plant side.

Hypoallergenic on a bag is a claim about design, not a promise about your dog, and this label is a reasonable version of it. One species, no grain and no dairy is genuinely narrow. Set against that, neither animal fat nor digest carries a species, and the digest is what makes the kibble worth finishing. If your vet has you on a formal exclusion trial, that is the point to mention at the appointment.

Dried beet pulp brings the gut fermentable fibre, a sensible thing to see on a food aimed at dogs with a history of upsets, and flaxseed adds plant omega 3 behind the fish. The list finishes with spinach powder, citrus pulp, tomato pomace and dried carrots, all small antioxidant additions.

The rest of the analysis reads 15.4% fat and 2.3% fibre on a dry matter basis, both ordinary for an adult food, with energy at 370 kcal per 100 grams. That last figure sits above the 357 kcal of a typical adult dry food, so the bowl fills faster on a recipe this light on meat.

£4.29 a kilo.

On a maintenance estimate of 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75), a 15kg adult in moderate condition eats about 227 grams, which works out at £0.97 a day. At that weight the label's own table asks for 230 grams, and the two land close together.