Home / Dog food / Hill's Science Diet / Puppy Sensitive Stomach & Skin Salmon & Brown Rice Recipe Dog Food

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Hill's Science Diet Puppy Sensitive Stomach & Skin Salmon & Brown Rice Recipe Dog Food

Dry food · puppy dogs

A feeding-trial-validated, salmon-first dry food that's denser than 67% (you feed fewer cups). We don't have a cost per day for this food yet.

THE FACTS, ONE SENTENCE — data as JSON · reference dog 40 lb · updated 2026-07-11

Tell us about your dogevery number on this page updates live ↓
40 lb
For a 40-lb adult: 2½ cupsper day not pricedper day 7 daysbag lasts 1 pass, 1 fail fit checks ↓

Joint, kidney, dental or heart concerns? Labels can't honestly answer those — that's vet territory. Why we don't checkmark them →

The evidence

The Verified Label

Every food on this site gets this exact panel — same fields, same order, sourced from the official label — so brands finally become comparable. Dots show where this food sits among all 494 dry foods we've verified.

Verified LabelThe standardized pet-food panel
VPFD № HILL-S
verified 2026-07-11

Composition — dry-matter basis

why dry matter
Kibble is ~10% water, canned food ~78%, so as-fed numbers are on two different scales. As-fed values shown small. How the conversion works →
Protein 27.8%label: 25% min lower than 68% of dry foods
Fat 17.2%label: 15.5% min typical — the median dry food is 16.7%
Fiber 4.4%label: 4% max lower than 69% of dry foods
Est. carbohydrates ash not disclosed → 8% assumed, so this is an estimate ≈41.7%computed anchor available once more brands disclose ash
Calcium / Phosphorus extended guarantees: DHA 0.5% Not yet verifiedcalcium/phosphorus no ratio to anchor

Calories & cost — for your 40-lb adult dog

Calorie density 405 kcal/cup3857 kcal/kg denser than 67% of dry foods (median 388) — you feed fewer cups
Daily serving2½ cups
Cost per day—
4-lb bag lasts7 days

No cost per 1,000 kcal yet: we haven't matched this food to a current Amazon listing. Serving math uses standard veterinary energy formulas — see the formula.

Standards & ingredients

AAFCO statement
what this means
Two claims exist: formulated to meet a profile, or fed to real dogs in an AAFCO trial. Which is stronger, and how rare it is →
Feeding trials ✓ · growth
First five ingredients (by pre-cooking weight)Salmon · Chicken Meal · Cracked Pearled Barley · Brown Rice · Brewers Rice
Named animal protein first; named meals onlyYes
Legumes in first 10 (FDA DCM inquiry)2 (pea protein, soybean meal)
BHA / BHT preservativesNone on label
Carrageenan (thickener)None
Ethoxyquin
why unknown
A preservative added by a fish-meal supplier need not appear on the finished label, so no label can prove its absence. Why we show gaps →
None — no fish meal in this recipe

Safety

FDA recalls — Hill's Science Diet, since 2023None on record
ManufacturerNot confirmed from label
Label transparency 9 of 15 standard fields
Green = verified favorable · amber = gap in the record · red = verified unfavorable · gray = not disclosed / neutral fact.
Source: official label source (official) · anchors: 494 verified dry dog foods (360 priced) · how to read this label

The fit

For your dog, specifically

Checked for a 40-lb adult with a sensitive stomach — the same published criteria our finder uses. Change your dog above and these update.

✕
Not validated for adult maintenanceThe AAFCO statement on file covers growth only.
✓
Passes our sensitive-stomach checksNamed animal protein first, and no unnamed by-products in the ingredient list.
·
Contains chickenNot selected as a concern for your dog — shown here for reference.

The source material

The full ingredient list

Every flag above is computed from this list. Why order is by pre-cooking weight, and how splitting bends it →

Salmon, Chicken Meal, Cracked Pearled Barley, Brown Rice, Brewers Rice, Chicken Fat, Pea Protein, Corn Protein Meal, Soybean Meal, Dried Beet Pulp, Hydrolyzed Chicken Flavor, Pork Liver Flavor, Flaxseed, Lactic Acid, Soybean Oil, Potassium Chloride, Fish Oil, Iodized Salt, L-Threonine, Choline Chloride, Dicalcium Phosphate, Calcium Carbonate, vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of Vitamin C), Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin A Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Biotin, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Taurine, DL-Methionine, L-Tryptophan, minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), Mixed Tocopherols for freshness, Natural Flavors, Beta-Carotene

8 ingredients in this list are ones we hold sourced evidence on , and 1 of them is genuinely contested rather than merely unpopular online.

  • Pea protein · ingredient 7ContestedA concentrated protein fraction extracted from peas, used to raise a food's protein content without added meat. As a pea-derived pulse ingredient it falls within the group of legume ingredients examined in the FDA's open 2018 investigation into diet-associated canine DCM; metabolomic work has flagged pea-related compounds, but causation has not been shown.
  • Named Meat/Poultry Meal (e.g., Chicken Meal, Lamb Meal) · ingredient 2Well supportedA rendered, water- and fat-reduced concentrate from a named species (AAFCO, e.g., 'chicken meal'). Because most moisture is removed it is a dense protein source (poultry meals commonly around 57-69% crude protein) and it names the species for allergy avoidance.
  • Beet Pulp · ingredient 10Well supportedThe fibrous material left after sugar is extracted from sugar beets, included as a moderately fermentable fiber source (commonly around 5 to 7.5% of the diet). Controlled feeding studies show it supports firm, good-quality stools and short-chain fatty acid production without impairing overall nutrient digestibility, so the 'cheap filler' characterization is not supported by the evidence.
  • Fish oil (EPA + DHA omega-3) · ingredient 17Well supportedMarine-source omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) from fish oil. A randomized, double-blinded controlled trial (Roush 2010) found improved weight-bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis, and a 2022 meta-analysis identified clear clinical analgesic efficacy for omega-3-enriched diets and supplements.
  • Mixed tocopherols (natural vitamin E) · ingredient 28Well supportedA blend of vitamin E forms (alpha-, beta-, gamma-, delta-tocopherol) used as a natural-source antioxidant to slow fat rancidity, commonly chosen as an alternative to synthetic preservatives. EFSA concluded that tocopherol-rich extracts are safe for all animal species and the consumer and are efficacious antioxidants in feed.
  • Brewers Rice · ingredient 5NeutralAn AAFCO-defined ingredient consisting of the small, broken fragments of rice kernels separated during milling. It is a digestible carbohydrate and energy source nutritionally similar to other rice; the 'brewers' name reflects how the fragments are sourced, not lower nutritional quality.

Nutritional twins

Priced close matches

This food has no verified price yet — these are the closest label matches that do.

27.9% protein (DM)$5.19 / 1,000 kcal
28.9% protein (DM)$6.33 / 1,000 kcal

Label-composition matches only: same species, form, and growth stage; same primary protein where both are known; grain-free preserved; protein within 4 points and fat within 4 points, and estimated carbs within 8 points, on a dry-matter basis. Not a medical or quality recommendation.

The maker

Who makes this — and how they back it up

The five questions the WSAVA nutrition guidelines tell you to ask a pet-food company. Every answer is sourced or marked as an undisclosed gap — never guessed. This is the "is it made competently?" axis that star-rating sites skip.

Owns its manufacturing Owns its plants

Same source: 'Hill's is currently building a new canned pet food manufacturing facility in Kansas... and in May completed the acquisition of a canned pet food plant in Italy from Nutriamo.' Indicates Hill's owns and operates its own manufacturing plants.

source →
Employs a qualified nutritionist Yes — sourced

Hill's explicitly employs four ACVN Diplomates (board-certified veterinary nutritionists) plus PhD nutritionists per same page ('Our staff of PhD nutritionists, food scientists, flavorists and veterinarians').

source →
AAFCO feeding trials Yes — sourced

167 of 212 labels we checked carry an AAFCO feeding-trial substantiation statement.

source →
Publishes quality-control testing Yes — sourced

covers: finished-product nutrient analysis (page also says each ingredient is examined and final safety checks run daily on every product; no Salmonella/batch detail on this page). Hill's company-wide page. NOTE: hillspet.com returns HTTP 403 to plain scripted requests; quote confirmed in-session via WebFetch only.

source →
Peer-reviewed research Yes — sourced

179 PubMed papers (animal/pet filtered) list Hill's Pet Nutrition in an author address; we checked 179 and 178 really name the company. A floor, not a total.

source →
Parent company Colgate-Palmolive Company ↗ Founded 1968 ↗ Headquarters / plant Overland Park, Kansas ↗ FDA recalls on record 3 on record

Full company scorecard, sources, and every SKU we've verified for this brand: Hill's Science Diet brand page →