Hill's Science Plan Small & Mini Senior Dog Food with Chicken review

This one settles in our Good band, and it earns that spot by trading in both directions. In its favour there is a genuinely useful set of senior touches, from the named prebiotic blend to the fish oil. The energy density suits an older dog eating less than they used to. Pulling the other way, protein finishes modestly, carbohydrate reaches 52.5% of dry matter against the 46.2% typical of adult dry food, and cereals rather than meat make up most of the carrier. Protein and processing, transparency and value all come back Good, with nutritional balance a step behind at Average. The food is built to be easy rather than remarkable, and the pillars say so. The middle of the dry shelf reads the same way, so nothing here is out of step with what most dogs are already eating.

Ingredients, as declared: Chicken and turkey meal (chicken 11%; total poultry 17%), broken rice, wheat, maize, animal fat, digest, barley, oats, dried beet pulp, vegetable oil, fish oil (1.8%), minerals, flaxseed, oat bran, fructo-oligosaccharides, dried tomato pomace, dried citrus pulp, spinach powder. ActivBiome+ Multi Benefit prebiotic blend (0.6%): Oat bran, fructo-oligosaccharides.

At the top of the list sits chicken and turkey meal, 11% chicken within 17% total poultry, the largest named meat share across the brand's small breed bags. Meal goes in already dried, so its printed share counts for more in the kibble than an equal figure of fresh meat would. Protein still converts to a gentle 22.4% of dry matter.

The carrier is broadly cereal: broken rice first, then wheat, maize, barley and oats, with dried beet pulp behind them. Carbohydrate reaches an estimated 52.5% of dry matter between them. Barley and oats are the more nutritious end of that group, bringing fibre and micronutrients along with their starch, but there is no getting away from grain being the backbone of this recipe.

The senior thinking is real and it lives in the small print. Oat bran and fructo-oligosaccharides make up the ActivBiome+ blend at 0.6%, fermentable fibres that the bacteria in the large intestine live on. Fish oil at 1.8% covers the marine omega 3s, which no plant oil can supply directly. Dried citrus pulp, tomato pomace and spinach powder finish the antioxidant side.

Fat is where this food gets its character, at 17.6% of dry matter and 379 kcal per 100g against a typical 357. For an older small dog whose appetite has faded, that concentration is a feature and not a flaw. For a small dog who has never once missed a meal, it means measuring the bowl properly. Calcium sits at 0.92% of dry matter, a settled adult level.

Three entries stay vague, the animal fat, the vegetable oil and the digest that makes the kibble worth finishing, none of which name a source. The trace minerals are the opposite, printed line by line. Zinc comes at 133 mg, iron at 75.7 mg, copper at 7.5 mg, manganese at 7.8 mg, iodine at 1.9 mg and selenium at 0.2 mg per kilo.

£6.17 a kilo, sold in a 1.5kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 222 grams a day, assuming about 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate), giving £1.37 a day. A small dog of the kind this bag is meant for eats a good deal less. Treat that figure as a ceiling.