The feeding guide on the bag is generous by design.
It runs on broad weight bands, knows nothing about your dog, and is published by the company selling the food. Below is the veterinary arithmetic instead, every figure printed before you enter anything, and the hand checks that overrule it.
Method one · the veterinary formula
Kcal from resting requirement
Start from what a dog burns doing nothing at all, then multiply for the life it actually lives:
RER (kcal/day) = 70 × kg0.75
| Dog | Couch companion | Daily walker | Very active | Working |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Puppy, under 4 months, early growth | ×3.0 at any activity; growth already charges the account | |||
| Puppy, 4 to 9 months, mid growth | ×2.5 at any activity; growth already charges the account | |||
| Puppy, 10 months to adult, nearing full size | ×2.0 at any activity; growth already charges the account | |||
| Neutered adult | ×1.4 | ×1.6 | ×2.0 | ×2.5 |
| Intact adult | ×1.6 | ×1.8 | ×2.0 | ×2.5 |
| Senior | ×1.4 | ×1.5 | ×1.6 | ×1.6 |
| Weight loss, RER of the ideal weight | ×1.0 of the ideal weight, not the current one | |||
Working dogs run from ×2.0 to as much as ×5.0 with the job. This page charges ×2.5 as a starting point; a dog that works all day is fed by the eye and the ribs, not by arithmetic.
Two rules complete the method. Treats, chews and the biscuit from the neighbour total no more than 10% of the day, taken out of the total rather than added on top. And grams need the label: commercial foods run roughly 330 to 420 kcal per 100 g, a spread wide enough that ignoring it makes the whole exercise pointless.
The score the arithmetic reads
Body condition, 1 to 9
The WSAVA scale, and the one skill this page actually wants to teach. Three checks, thirty seconds: ribs felt easily under a thin covering, a visible waist from above, an upward tuck from the side. In the arithmetic, each point away from 5 reads as roughly 10% off ideal weight; that is how the ideal-weight estimate is made.
| Score | Means | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Underweight | Ribs, spine and hip bones visible from a distance |
| 4 to 5 | Ideal | About 15 to 24% body fat |
| 6 to 7 | Overweight | About 25 to 34% body fat |
| 8 to 9 | Obese | 35% body fat and beyond |
Method two · the cross-check
Percent of body weight
The fresh-feeding world skips kcal and feeds a percentage of body weight per day. Almost no calculator runs both worlds; this one prints both answers side by side, because when two independent methods agree, the number has earned some trust.
| Dog | Per day |
|---|---|
| Senior or couch companion | 2 to 2.5% of ideal weight |
| Daily walker | 2.5% of ideal weight |
| Very active or working | 2.5 to 3% of ideal weight |
| Puppy, under 4 months | 8 to 10% of current weight |
| Puppy, 4 to 6 months | 6 to 8% of current weight |
| Puppy, 6 to 9 months | 4 to 6% of current weight |
| Puppy, 9 to 12 months | 3 to 4% of current weight |
| Puppy, 12 months on | 2.5 to 3% of current weight |
Work out the bowl
Six facts, an honest score, and the result appears on this page, not behind a wall. No signup, nothing stored.
Asked often
- Why not just follow the feeding guide on the bag?
- Because it is generic and generous. Bag guides run on broad weight bands, cannot know whether your dog is neutered, active or overweight, and are published by the company selling the food. This calculator runs the veterinary formula on your actual dog, then tells you how to check the answer with your hands.
- Which answer do I trust, the kcal figure or the percentage figure?
- Both, together. The kcal method is the veterinary formula; the percent-of-body-weight method is the fresh-feeding convention. At typical fresh-food energy density they land within a couple hundred grams of each other. When they disagree badly, your food is unusually rich or unusually watery, and the kcal figure on the label settles it.
- What if I do not know the kcal of my food?
- Commercial dry foods run roughly 330 to 420 kcal per 100 g, and the calculator shows your portion across that whole range. The spread is wide enough that finding the real figure on the label is worth the minute it takes. For home-cooked bowls, the percentage method is the more usable answer.
- Why does the calculator use ideal weight for weight loss?
- Feeding the current weight of an overweight dog maintains the overweight. The plan feeds the dog it should be: roughly resting energy requirement for the ideal weight, with loss paced at 1 to 2% of body weight per week and a vet involved, because unexplained gain can be endocrine disease rather than dinner.
- How much of the daily total can be treats?
- No more than 10%, and it comes out of the total rather than sitting on top of it. Training rewards, chews and the biscuit from the neighbour all count. This is where most careful feeding plans quietly fail.
- Can I use this for a pregnant or nursing dog?
- No, and that is deliberate. Lactation can run to six to eight times resting requirement and shifts week by week; it is the highest-stakes feeding case a dog has. That plan is built with a vet, not computed by a page.
- This is an educational starting point, not a prescription. Weight loss plans, pregnancy, lactation and any dog losing weight on adequate food belong with a veterinarian.
- Every figure this page charges is printed above the form, so you can check the arithmetic yourself.
- Nothing is stored. The result lives in its link and nowhere else.
A free tool from OhMyDog.Rocks.