Feeding calculator
Work out your dog's daily calories
Most calculators hand you one confident number. That number does not exist. This one shows you the honest range your dog's needs fall inside, and then tells you the only test that actually settles it.
Enter your dog's weight above to see the range.
Your dog's real requirement sits somewhere in this band. Two dogs of identical weight can differ by 30% in either direction — that is the veterinary figure, not a hedge.
The number above is a starting point, not an answer.
The test that settles it is your hands, not this calculator. Run both thumbs along your dog's ribs. You should feel each rib easily, with a thin cover over it — like the back of your own hand, not your knuckles and not your palm. Seen from above there should be a waist behind the ribs. Seen from the side, the belly should tuck up.
Feed the midpoint for two weeks, check the ribs, then adjust up or down by about 10% and hold. Weigh the food if you can; a scoop varies by a lot more than people think.
Two things this cannot do.
It cannot account for illness, pregnancy, nursing, or a dog recovering from surgery, and it is not a substitute for your veterinarian. If your dog is losing or gaining weight without explanation, that is a conversation with a vet, not an arithmetic problem.
It also does not know your dog. Nobody has ever published a study measuring what a service dog's working day actually costs in calories — so treat any bag that claims to know with the same suspicion you would treat any other unsourced claim.
How this is worked out, and where the numbers come from
- Resting calories. 70 × (weight in kg raised to the power of 0.75). This is the standard veterinary resting energy requirement.
- Daily calories. Resting calories × a multiplier for your dog's situation — 1.8 intact, 1.6 neutered, 1.4 prone to weight gain, 2.0 for a growing puppy over four months, 3.0 under four months.
- The range. Plus or minus 30%. The Merck Veterinary Manual states that any given animal may need "as much as 30% more or less" than the figure calculated for its weight.
- Cups per day. Daily calories divided by the calories per cup printed on your bag.
Why not just use the feeding chart on the bag? Because those charts routinely overestimate. In one analysis of eight adult dry dog foods by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, four recommended appropriate amounts for small and medium dogs but excessive amounts for large ones — one by up to 61%. There is no standardised method behind them.
Sources: Merck Veterinary Manual, Nutritional Requirements of Small Animals; AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles; WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee body condition guidance; Tufts Cummings School Clinical Nutrition Service.
Nothing here is sent anywhere. This calculator runs entirely inside your own browser. No figures you type are transmitted, saved, or stored — not by us, not by anyone. Close the page and it is gone.