Specific CDD Food Allergen Management review

Ingredients, as declared: Rice, egg powder, minerals, pork fat, protein hydrolysate, vitamins and trace elements (including chelated trace elements), cellulose powder, psyllium husk, methionine, rosemary extract. With natural antioxidants (tocopherols and vitamin C).

The list is short by intent, and being short is the working part of it. Rice comes first, egg powder second and minerals third, with pork fat fourth and a protein hydrolysate fifth. Cellulose powder, psyllium husk, methionine and rosemary extract close it out, alongside a vitamin and trace element package.

On the protein side, egg is the only species named. The entry printed as protein hydrolysate names neither animal nor plant, so one of the recipe's protein sources cannot be identified from the label at all, and pork arrives through the fat. A trial that needs every source accounted for has two entries it can check and one it cannot, which is worth raising when the food is dispensed.

Fibre comes from the cellulose powder and the psyllium husk, one a bulking powder with almost nothing else to offer, the other soluble. Methionine is added as a single amino acid in its own right. Preservation is natural, rosemary extract sitting with tocopherols and vitamin C.

As printed the analysis gives 16.0% protein, 12.0% fat and 1.0% crude fibre, with moisture at 8.5% and energy at 379 kcal per 100g. There is no ash figure, which is why the panel stops short of a carbohydrate estimate. Protein pitched that low, and fibre barely registering, both follow from a recipe stripped back to as few sources as it can manage. Only the vet running the trial can say whether this is the food to run it with.

It comes in 2kg and 12kg bags plus a 3x2kg multipack, at £6.67 a kilo. The label sets out 55g a day at 2.5kg, 200g at 15kg and 710g for a dog of 80kg. A dog on an elimination trial is fed to the practice's instruction rather than to the table.