Pro Plan Veterinary Diet Dermatosis Dry review

Ingredients, as declared: Corn starch, Rapeseed meal*, Pea protein*, Dried herring protein*, Pork fat, Digest*, Fish oil, Minerals, Rapeseed oil

The ingredient list is short, and on a diet of this kind that is the point of it. Corn starch comes first, rapeseed meal second and pea protein third, so most of the protein arrives from plants. Dried herring protein is the only named meat anywhere on the panel, and it sits fourth.

Pork fat and digest follow the herring. Pork is named plainly. Digest is a processed palatant, and the label never says which animal went into it, so a dog part way through a strict exclusion trial meets one further species outright and one left open. Fish oil, minerals and rapeseed oil close the list, which means rapeseed appears twice, once as the meal carrying protein and once as an oil.

Nine entries in total is unusually few for a dry food, and there is no dairy, no poultry and no cereal beyond the corn starch. That short panel is what makes a recipe like this readable for an owner keeping a food diary. Corn starch and rapeseed are both worth noting, though, if either has come up for your dog before.

Protein is declared at 30% and converts to 32.6% of dry matter, with fat at 18% as fed, or 19.6% dry. Crude fibre reads 2.7% of dry matter, ash 8.2%, the carbohydrate estimate 36.9%, and energy is 400 kcal per 100g. Leaning on starch and oils while keeping the named ingredients few is the trade a diet built this way makes on purpose. What those proportions should be for your own dog is for the vet directing the treatment to say.

The added panel names vitamin E at 350 IU per kilogram, with vitamins A and D3 dosed alongside it. Then come iron at 94 mg per kilogram, zinc at 86, manganese at 34, copper at 9.8, iodine at 1.4 and selenium at 0.10, the selenium in its sodium selenite form. Antioxidants are declared at the end without a figure beside them.

It is packed in 3kg and 12kg bags.