Hi all, I majored in Veterinary Technology in college for a year. While going to college I got a job in dog grooming and really fell in love with that, so here I am 6 years later a professional Dog Groomer.
Anyhow, one of my favorite courses was Nutrition and we learned the scientific way Vets and professionals calculate feeding amounts.

I had a GSD with severe food allergies. I tried many kinds of special diets for years, and each time I found myself referring back to the formula I had learned. Many times I've found the "suggested" feeding amount to be too much or too little for my specific dog.

Using this formula, my dog maintained an ideal weight through many different diets. You could say I really love this formula.
So I would love to share this formula, especially with the very nice, in-depth owners here.

I do not think it is too hard, especially if you have a calculator handy - lol.
Its a breeze once you get the hang of it.

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1. Find out how many KILOcalories (KCAL) your dog's diet has Per CUP.
* Most top-of-the-line Dog foods will have this on their label near the Analysis.
OR you could look it up on the company's website, OR find the company's phone number and ask a representative.*

2. Find your dog's Daily Energy Requirement (DER) Factor number. *For weight-gain, use appropriate DER but change the weight to their target weight*

Daily Energy Requirements:
· Weight Loss = 1.0
· Neutered /Spayed Adult normal activity = 1.6
· Intact Adult normal activity = 1.8
· Light Worker = 2.0
· Moderate Worker = 3.0
· Heavy Worker = 4.0 - 8.0
· Pregnant Dog (first 42 days) = 1.8
· Pregnant Dog (last 21 days) = 3.0
· Lactating Female = 4.0 - 8.0
· Puppy - Weaning to 4 Months = 3.0
· Puppy - 4 Months to Adult Size = 2.0


3. Find out your dog's Weight in Kilograms. (Divide # of pounds by 2.2)

4. The Formula:

( 30 x Kilograms + 70 ) = RER #

(DER Factor x RER #) = How many KCALs your dog NEEDS per day.

KCALs your dog NEEDS per day (divided by)
KCALs per cup in their FOOD = How Many Cups to Feed per Day!

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Its that simple, I can even give an Example.

Ruger, M/N GSD, 80lbs.

1. Diet: California Natural Grain-Free Chicken = 454 kcal /cup.

2. Neutered Adult with Normal Activity Lvl = 1.6 DER

3. (80lbs / 2.2) = 36.36 Kilograms

4. Formula:

(30 x 36.36 Kg + 70) = 1160.8 kcals RER

(1.6 DER x 1160.8 RER) = 1857.28 kcals per day.

(1857 kcals per day / 454 kcals per cup) = 4.0 Cups to feed Ruger per day!

[The diet's Suggested amount for an 80lb. dog is 3 1/2 cups per day.]


~ I hope this is helpful, or at least fun! ~

Cool, thanks for posting. I acutally did have fun doing that lol. According to this, mine is supposed to eat 2.15 cups a day. That's pretty much what she gets, minus some on heavy treat days. Cool stuff.

My two 44lb high-moderate workers, and my 63lb low-moderate worker eat food that is 350kcal/cup.

I feed the smaller two 6ish a day, and the bigger one 7 a day (3 and 3.5 twice a day, respectively)

That math says 6.5 cups for smaller, 7.1 for the bigger. I must have overestimated the DER on the smaller two.

That's a very cool formula. Very worth knowing.

Thanks this is great, any difference if it is weightloss food vs regular food? I see that the DER is different. Just wondered because the amount I got was a bit high compared to what one dog is on now for weightloss and she maintains at actual so I would guess at that calculation she would not lose. Right on for the other two dogs Thanks!

Weight-loss food, should probably, have lower KCals. This might lead to the portions being larger, and the smaller DER factor might not compensate enough.

I'm no licensed expert though, but just for the sake of fun playing around with the numbers..

It might work if you use the target weight method: Use the normal DER and change their weight to what weight you want them to be. I've done that a few times, my GSD was 90 lbs when on steroid prednisone and looked a little chunky so I figured out how much he should normally eat if I wanted him more like 85lbs. and it seemed to work pretty well.
I've also done this with my often flabby tomcat (using cat DER factors) he is a food fanatic and I tend to freak out whenever I realize he's 14lbs. again when I think he looks more fit at 12lbs.

yes the weightloss food has lower Kcal at 306. I did try the lowere target weight and that did help. Was just curious thanks!

Just curious, how do you differentiate between the normal activity, light worker, etc?

I'm not completely sure, I guess its up to your own interpretation.
I would suppose like a dog that goes running with their owner a few times a week, maybe a dog that does agility on the weekend, or something like that.

I considered Soshanna and Panzer 3.2, because they each walk 10km a day with 48 fl oz of water in their packs, on top of hours of fetch and play with the pack.

Mixie just doesnt carry weight, she still walks and plays, so i did 2.8, and it was perfect.

Ok I was just curious for the future, my boys still a pup at 5 months, but I plan on getting him to the point of biking a few miles a day plus running a few with me and going to the dog park for 30 mins to an hour because he absolutely loves the park, but other than the park I still have a while before that. Would you consider that amount of "work" like moderate or high? I think it's low or moderate for a husky but if this is for dogs in general then I could see it being high.

Low to moderate, less than 3.0. My girls were moderate at best with their current routine. There are 5 working dogs in my pack and they have free reign of an acre all day, on top of dog parks, structured agility, weighted walks, etc every day, as much as possible. 3.2 yielded slightly higher than their current feeding. During spring thru fall their workload increases almost double, and still would probably barely hit on 4.0, when i do the rough math.

This formula was WAY off for all 3 of my dogs, but I did it just for the sake of seeing how accurate or not it might be. I.e. I did it just for fun because I know how much I need to feed my dogs to maintain their weight. In the end, I personally would not use this formula for determining how much to feed my dogs (nothing wrong with doing it just for fun though), there are just too many outside variables that cannot be taken into consideration such as breed (bear in mind Siberians were breed to require less food than other similar sized breeds) and individual metabolisms that can't be factored into an all inclusive equation. Anyway, this formula gave me results considerably higher for all 3 of my dogs than they need.

Results for my 3 are as follows:

Dakota
22 kg
Neutered male/normal activity (1.6 DER)
Food is 336 kcal/cup
RER # 730 (=30 x 22 kg + 70)

1.6 DER x 730 RER = 1168 kcals/day
1168 kcals/day / 336 kcal/cup = 3.47 cups/day

Since that result was way too high I decided to run the formula using the weight loss DER:
1 DER x 730 RER = 730 kcals/day
730 kcals/day / 336 kcal/cup = 2.17 cups/day


In short, the formula suggests Dakota needs:
3.47 cups/day using the neutered adult, normal activity DER
2.17 cups/day using the weight loss DER

Both results are higher than what Dakota actually needs which is only 1.75 cups/day

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Next up....

Faith
3 kg
Spayed female/normal activity (1.6 DER)
Food is 342 kcal/cup
RER # 160 (=30 x 3 kg + 70)

1.6 DER x 160 RER = 256 kcals/day
256 kcals/day / 342 kcal/cup = 0.74 cups/day

Since that result was also way too high I, again, decided to run the formula using the weight loss DER:
1 DER x 160 RER = 160 kcals/day
160 kcals/day / 342 kcal/cup = 0.46 cups/day


In short, the formula suggests Faith needs:
0.74 cups/day using the spayed adult, normal activity DER
0.46 cups/day using the weight loss DER

Both results are, AGAIN, higher than what Faith actually needs which is 0.3 cups/day

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Moving on...

Glory
Same stats and food as Faith so formula and results are the same...

In short, the formula suggests Glory needs:
0.74 cups/day using the spayed adult, normal activity DER
0.46 cups/day using the weight loss DER

Not surprisingly the results are, yet again, considerably higher than what Glory actually needs which is a mere 0.25 cups/day thanks to her low metabolism.



If I were to use the equations suggested feeding amount, even using the weigh loss DER, all 3 of my dogs would be big, fat rolly pollies.

Its true, DER is not perfect because of breed differences, but when you go to a vet they use this formula to tell people what to feed their dogs as a base-line. If the dog gets a little chunky, the vet would suggest they lower the amount of food.

Also - believe it or not - SO many people count like a SOLO cup (12-16oz.) as 1 cup(8oz.)!
That has thrown vet's suggested feeding amounts way overboard, many times.
Vets happily give out those little measure cups to combat this, Lol.

Going by the KG, the chihuahuas are 6.6 pounds each? They look smaller than that, but its possible.
^_^ Even if they are 3 pounds, it still comes out to 1/2 a cup a day but they eat around 1/4.

Less than 2 cups a day for a husky, I would've never thought of that.
I've grown up with German Shepherds lol, so I'm used to around 4 cups per day.

My Bichon eats 1 cup a day of his 'weight management' food and maintains a great weight.

Now Cadance, I haven't done the formula yet but the (4-star) food label and through searching here says she should be getting about 3 or more cups a day (14 weeks old / 23lbs) But she isn't really eating that much. I might try a different food, since she will scheme and sneak by to eat the GSD's food when she had just walked away from hers.

I'm gonna do the calculations for her now that I have the time. ^_^

Yep, my chi girls are 6.5 lbs and 7 lbs. My 6.5 pounder has fast metabolism and eats 1/3 cup/day. My 7 pounder has the slow metabolism and eats less at 1/4 cup/day. My 50 lb sibe has never eaten more than 1 and 3/4 cups. The few times I tried he has gotten the runs because it's too much for him.

Cool ^_^

For Cadance ~

23.5 lbs / 2.2 = 10.7Kg
10.7Kg x 30 + 70 = 391 RER
391 x 3.0 DER (puppy under 4 months) = 1173 per day.
1173 / 359 kcal/cup = 3.26 cups per day!

I feed her 1 cup, 3 times a day but she often doesn't finish it all.

i just did this and it is also way off for my 2
our food is 336kcals
1.6 activity
Sierra is 20.9kg and Jack is 25.9 kg
it says that sierra is at 3.3c, and Jack at 4 cups

Sierra gets 1 3/4 cups a day and Jack gets 2 cups of food a day + a small about of treats. both of mine would be over weigh as well.
the bag of food says 40-60lbs to feed 3-4 cups a day so i guess it goes with what the bag says.....