Rocco Diet Care Hypoallergenic: Lamb review

No ingredient list is published alongside this recipe, and that is the first thing to know. The meat sources, the carbohydrate and the fibre cannot be read off the label. Rocco gives lamb as the meat behind this variety and prints the analysis in full. An exclusion plan lives or dies on the small print, so ask your vet or Rocco itself to confirm exactly what goes into the pack before your dog starts on it.

What the label does itemise is the dosed side of the recipe: vitamin D3 at 200 IU, vitamin E at 20mg, biotin at 300mcg, zinc at 25mg, manganese at 1.4mg and iodine at 0.75mg. Biotin and zinc arriving together is the combination makers tend to reach for when skin and coat are part of the reason a dog was moved onto a diet like this in the first place.

Take the water out of the sum and protein sits at 41.2% of dry matter with fat at 34.0%, the carbohydrate estimate at 11.2% and crude ash at 12.0%. Moisture is declared at 75.0% and energy at 122 kcal per 100g. Fat carries a big share of that dry matter, which is what happens in a wet recipe leaning on one meat with little bulking behind it. That is how the food was built, not something missing from it.

The feeding guide is printed as a range rather than one figure, running from 260 to 360 grams a day for a 5kg dog and reaching 1245 to 1705 grams at 40kg. Room that wide is useful while a diet is being trialled, since the amount can be adjusted week by week. Where your dog settles inside it belongs to the vet who put you on this path.

It comes in 400g and 800g sizes, boxed in sixes or in saver packs of 24, and works out at £3.49 a kilo. A 15kg dog would take in the region of 689 grams a day on this food's energy figure, putting the daily feed at about £2.40.