Hill's Science Plan Mature Adult 7+ Medium review

Set beside the typical adult dry food, which our scoring reads as Good, this one finishes in the Average band. The sums behind it are plain enough. Estimated carbohydrate climbs to 59.3% of dry matter, protein converts to 19.0% of dry matter, and the named meat share stays in single figures. What a score cannot capture is consistency, which is Hill's real product: the same kibble, the same analysis and the same digestibility bag after bag. Transparency reads Good, and for a medium senior with nothing in particular to fix, this remains a straightforward food to keep in the cupboard.

Ingredients, as declared: Maize, wheat, chicken and turkey meal (chicken 7%; total poultry 12%), animal fat, digest, vegetable oil, flaxseed, dried beet pulp, minerals, oat bran, fructo-oligosaccharides, pork cartilage (source of chondroitin sulphate), crustacean shell hydrolysate (source of glucosamine). ActivBiome+ Multi Benefit prebiotic blend (0.6%): Oat bran, fructo-oligosaccharides.

Maize opens the list with wheat behind it. Maize is the steadier of the pair for most dogs, being less often implicated in food reactions than wheat. Both are cooked thoroughly, and that is what makes a cereal digestible for a dog in the first place. Between them they set carbohydrate at an estimated 54.6% as fed.

One entry carries the animal protein: a combined chicken and turkey meal at 7% chicken and 12% total poultry. Of the two birds turkey is the leaner one, and that explains how often it shows up in recipes for older dogs. Because meal is dried before inclusion, that 12% delivers more usable protein than the number looks like it should, though it remains a small proportion of the bag.

Animal fat sits third and is the main energy source, with fat declared at 13.3% as fed. Vegetable oil follows, another entry that names nothing in particular, and flaxseed supplies plant omega 3. None of the three tells you which animal or which plant, and that is the honest limitation of this label.

Dried beet pulp is the main fibre, a fermentable one that suits most guts, alongside the ActivBiome+ blend at 0.6% made from oat bran and fructo-oligosaccharides. This is not a recipe built around bulk in the bowl, with crude fibre at 2.1% of dry matter.

Pork cartilage and crustacean shell hydrolysate supply chondroitin and glucosamine without a printed dose between them. The mineral panel is dosed per kilo: zinc at 134 mg, iron at 76.4 mg, manganese at 7.9 mg, copper at 7.5 mg, iodine at 1.9 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg. Calcium converts to 0.84% of dry matter.

Sold in 2.5kg, 6kg, 14kg and 18kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg dog in moderate condition would eat roughly 231 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Hill's own table asks 205 grams for a dog of that weight. Start between the two figures, and the waistline decides after that.