Pro Plan Medium Adult Sensitive Digestion OptiDigest review

The lamb headline is the best thing on this label and our reading still comes out in the Average band, a step below the Good band the typical adult dry food holds. The explanation is everything sitting behind the lamb. Dried poultry protein is the third ingredient, soya meal and corn protein meal add plant protein to the panel, and the animal fats and digest name no animal at all.

Protein converts to 28.3% of dry matter and carbohydrate to 43.4%, a little under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food, so the balance itself is reasonable. For a medium dog with a temperamental stomach, none of this stops it being a gentle and sensible bowl, and the printed beet pulp dose is a genuine piece of design rather than marketing.

Ingredients, as declared: High quality lamb (including lungs and liver) (19%), Rice (18%), Dried poultry protein, Corn, Animal fats, Dried beet pulp (5%), Digest, Soya meal, Corn grits, Corn protein meal, Dried egg, Minerals, Fish oil

Lamb at 19% is fresh weight and the label says which parts, naming lungs and liver alongside the meat. Offal is not a downgrade. Liver is one of the richest foods a dog can eat, and printing it shows more candour than the average label. What fresh lamb cannot do is hold its full weight through the oven, so the finished protein leans on the dried entries behind it.

The starch is rice at 18%. Of the common cereals it is the gentlest on an unsettled gut, and that is precisely why this recipe uses it and no wheat. Corn and corn grits follow it. Protein converts to 28.3% of dry matter and carbohydrate to 43.4%. This is a cereal-based food carrying a respectable meat headline.

The digestion case rests on dried beet pulp at 5%. Beet pulp is a fibre that ferments moderately in the gut. It firms up a loose stool and feeds the gut bacteria further down. Seeing the percentage printed is what separates a working dose from a gesture. Fat at 16.0% is moderate too, which helps a dog whose gut objects to anything rich.

Dried poultry protein in third place does not say which bird, and that matters most for the owner who came to a lamb recipe precisely because chicken caused trouble. Digest, the palatant that makes kibble taste worth eating, sits in the same category. Most dogs are untroubled by either, though both are worth knowing about if you are running a formal trial.

The vitamin and mineral panel is dosed line by line. Zinc is at 140 mg, iron at 150 mg, manganese at 57 mg and copper at 16 mg per kilo, with vitamin E at 550 IU. Tocopherol extracts at 37 mg per kilo keep the fats fresh, a natural preservative in place of a chemical one. Calcium works out at 1.5% of dry matter, a normal adult level.

Sold in 3kg and 14kg bags.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition would eat about 218 grams a day, assuming around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). The label puts that dog at 220 grams a day when activity is under an hour. The two land in almost the same place, and the waistline can take it from there.