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Free pet calculator

Dog Food Portion Calculator

How much to feed your dog — based on their weight, life stage, and their food's actual calorie content.

Not veterinary advice. This tool gives a general estimate for informational purposes only — it does not replace professional judgment. If you're concerned, contact a veterinarian right away. This estimates a healthy starting point, not a prescription — dogs with a medical condition, a weight-loss plan, or unusual activity levels should get a feeding plan directly from their vet.

For weight loss, use the dog's target healthy weight, not their current weight.

Look for the "Calorie Content" statement on your food's bag or can — U.S. labels are required to list this per cup or per 100 g.

Sources & how this is calculated

This calculator uses the same two-step math a veterinary nutritionist uses. First, resting energy requirement: RER = 70 × (body weight in kg)0.75. Then that's scaled by a life-stage/activity factor to get daily energy requirement (DER) — the factors above (1.0 for weight loss, 1.2–1.4 for inactive/weight-gain-prone, 1.6 for neutered adults, 1.8 for intact adults, 2–3 for growing puppies) come from the Pet Nutrition Alliance's "Calculating Calories Based on Pet Needs" reference sheet, the same table reproduced in AAHA's nutrition guidelines and used by veterinary teaching hospitals' own calculators. Pregnant or nursing dogs are left out of the life-stage list on purpose — PNA's own ranges for those stages are too wide (1.6–6× RER depending on trimester and litter size) to flatten into one number here; talk to your vet directly for that feeding plan.

DER only tells you the calorie target — how much food that means depends entirely on that food's calorie density, which varies by brand and formula (there's no single "typical" number accurate enough to hardcode here). AAFCO's pet food labeling rules require every non-exempt dog food label to state a "Calorie Content" figure in kcal per familiar unit (cup, can, or piece) — that's the number this calculator asks for.

This is a starting-point estimate, not a prescription: individual dogs can vary by as much as 50% from the predicted value, per PNA's own guidance. Adjust up or down based on your dog's actual body condition, and check with your vet for weight-loss plans, medical conditions, or working/high-activity dogs whose needs run well above these general factors.