Dog Food Calculator | Dog Nutrition | Best Dog Food
By Filip Derma
Dog nutrition - calorie requirements
Lazy dog - dog's activity type
How many calories does a dog need? - example of calculations
Dog food calculator is an essential assistant for every dog owner. It helps you in everyday dog nutrition, providing with your dog's daily calorie demand as well as the number of servings you should give your pet to cover its nutrition needs. It doesn't matter whether you have a lazy dog or a working dog, this dog calorie calculator allows you to choose the best dog food for any day. No more wondering how many calories does a dog need!
But before we dive in, you may want to check out the salad calories calculator for humans 😉
Dogs need energy to function properly, just as any organism does. Therefore, their daily calorie intake needs to be sufficient to maintain a dog in good overall health, proper weight, and right physical and mental condition. Energy in the form of calories is essential to support both basic body functions and physical activity.
Resting energy requirement (RER) is the amount of energy needed by animal's body to perform the most basic functions (keeping it alive) while resting. These functions include:
RER does not account for calories burned to support physical activity.
Physical activity is anything that a dog does through a day, and that requires additional energy (calories) to be burned except for these used to support resting (basic) functions. These are all the activities, exercise and tricks a dog does during the day. Each wag of its tail, fetched ball and chased cat consumes energy! The total daily energy needs are also known as MER - Maintenance Energy Requirements.
🍫It's time to remind that chocolate can be poisonous to dogs and your pet shouldn't try even a tiny bit of it! Find out more in our [dog chocolate toxicity calculator.](calc:4137)
This dog food calorie calculator gives you only estimations - the real dog's daily calorie needs rely on various factors which may change with time and circumstances. If you have any doubts about your dog nutrition, calorie intake, and best dog food, consult those topics with a professional vet as the quality of food the dog eats has an impact on his life expectancy.
The daily energy requirements may differ between dogs - factors such as breed (even if the dogs are the same size), age, living environment (inside or outside), body condition, being neutered/intact and overall size all influence a dogs nutritional needs. Dog metabolism varies a lot in general, and it is mathematically impossible to determine precisely how many kilocalories a dog needs. However, even an estimate can be helpful - for example, if we want to change our dog's BMI.
In the dog food calculator, we consider a few different types of canine lifestyle activity as well as its maturity. The maintenance energy requirements are separated into the following categories:
Puppy - 0 to 4 months
Puppy - 4 months to adult dog
Dog - inactive or/and obese prone
Neutered or spayed dog with normal activity
Intact dog with normal activity
Overweight dog which needs to lose weight
Underweight dog which needs to gain some mass
Working dog - light work
Working dog - moderate work
Working dog - heavy work
For this classification, an inactive dog is one that rarely runs around a backyard; moderately active dog has up to 30 minutes of continuous exercise every day; active dog is one that walks 2 times a day for about 45 minutes each time; and higly active dog gets at least several hours of exercise a day.
Army Staff Sgt. Buddy, an explosive detection and attack dog, stands tall to sniff a suspicious scent as Army Sgt. Tyler Barriere, military working dog handler, looks on during a search demonstration at Camp Echo, Iraq, Jan. 7, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Rodney Foliente (archive.defense.gov)
This dog calorie calculator uses the below formulas to estimate the daily resting calories (RER) and daily overall calories (MER) needed by your dog:
for resting calorie needs: RER [cal/day] = 70 * (dog's weight [kg]) ^ 0.75
for total daily energy needs: MER [cal/day] = RER * factor, where factor is a multiplying number dependent on the dog's type and its activity. The equation for each dog type (listed in the previous paragraph) look like this:
Puppy (0-4 years) 3.0
Puppy (4 years - adult) 2.0
Adult - inactive/obese 1.2
Adult (neutered/spayed) - average activity 1.6
Adult (intact) - average activity 1.8
Adult - weight loss 1.0
Adult - weight gain 1.7
Working dog - light work 2.0
Working dog - moderate work 3.0
Working dog - heavy work 5.0
Senior dog 1.1
If you have any doubts on how this dog nutrition calculator works, follow this example of calculations. We will make an estimation for Boscoe - a 4-year-old dog, who weighs 25 kg, is moderately active, not neutered or spayed and, in general, is a very excitable and loving scamp. His owner gives Boscoe dry food, with around 280 calories per cup. Let's see step by step how many calories does a dog need and how many cups of dog food per day is required:
First, choose the dog's type from the list - for Boscoe this will be adult, intact dog with average activity.
Next, enter the dog's weight - he weights 25 kg.
Now, you can see the results - Boscoe's MER value is 1409 calories/day.
Then, if you want to find the RER value as well as how many cups of food you need to give your dog, click the advanced mode button. RER expense is respectively 783 calories/day. Enter the calories per 1 dose.
And check the result - Boscoe's owner should give him 5 cups of dry food per day.
Dog's characteristics
Dog (intact) - average activity
Results - Dog's calorie requirements
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