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.
Showing an example
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.
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 (Table 1, canine column). The same RER/MER approach is set out in the American Animal Hospital Association's 2021 Nutrition and Weight Management Guidelines (Box 1, "Energy Requirement Calculations"). Pregnant or nursing dogs are left out of the life-stage list on purpose — PNA's own ranges for those stages are too wide (1.6–2× RER for gestation, 2–6× for lactation, 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 the label to carry a "Calorie Content" statement — kilocalories per kilogram of food as fed, plus kilocalories per familiar unit such as a cup, can, or biscuit. (AAHA's guidelines say the same: "AAFCO requires calorie content on dog and cat food labels, including snacks and treats.") That per-unit figure is the number this calculator asks for; if your label only gives kcal/kg, divide by 10 for kcal per 100 g.
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.