Hill's Science Plan Perfect Weight Small & Mini Adult Dog Food with Chicken review

The Average band is where this one finishes, for a reason that has more to do with arithmetic than with quality control. Take the calories out of a kibble and something low in energy has to fill the space, and here that is cereal and purified fibre, which our scoring reads exactly as it finds them. Protein and processing comes back Average, with the other three readings a step above it in Good. Against that, a typical adult dry food in our Good band is not trying to bring a dog's weight down at all. If slimming a small dog is the job in front of you, that context tells you more than the band does.

Ingredients, as declared: Wheat, maize protein meal, chicken and turkey meal (chicken 9%; total poultry 14%), pea bran meal, maize, digest, dried tomato pomace, cellulose, flaxseed, animal fat, dried beet pulp, coconut oil, minerals, dried carrots.

Wheat in first place is the thing a careful reader notices straight away. It is there as an inexpensive, low-fat biscuit base. In a recipe built to dilute energy that choice is at least logical. Wheat also sits among the cereals most often behind an itchy or unsettled dog, so it is worth knowing whose bowl this is going into.

Chicken and turkey meal is the named meat, chicken declared at 9% within a total poultry figure of 14%. Meal is a dried, concentrated form, so it delivers more protein per gram than a fresh meat entry would once the kibble has been baked. At this share, though, it is plainly not the main event. Maize protein meal, second on the list, is a concentrated plant protein and does much of the lifting behind the 28.5% of dry matter that protein reaches.

Cellulose, pea bran meal and dried beet pulp between them push crude fibre to 13.3% of dry matter, several times what a standard kibble carries. Cellulose in particular is purified plant fibre with next to no energy in it, which is precisely the point: it occupies the bowl without feeding the dog. Carbohydrate is estimated at 40.4% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food, and energy comes to 316 kcal per 100g where the typical is 357.

The finishing touches are sensible rather than showy. Flaxseed supplies omega 3s in their plant form, dried tomato pomace and dried carrots bring antioxidants and a little more fibre, and coconut oil sits in the fat blend. Calcium is comfortable for an adult small dog at 0.86% of dry matter.

Every trace mineral has a printed dose: zinc at 132 mg, iron at 75.2 mg, copper at 7.4 mg, manganese at 7.8 mg, iodine at 1.9 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg per kilo. Digest, the flavour coating that persuades a small dog to finish a low-calorie kibble, and the animal fat are the two entries that name no species.

£4.83 a kilo, in 1.5kg and 6kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would need about 266 grams a day, assuming roughly 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). That comes to £1.28 a day. Almost every dog eating this bag is far smaller than that and on a reduced ration besides, so the everyday figure will be a fraction of it.