Dog Calorie Calculator - How much should you feed your dog?

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karol

Forums Regular
I came across this dog calorie calculator. All you do is put in dog's weight, age group and activity level and it comes up with the number of calories they should be getting to maintain their weight. There is also a second part to calculator where you input some nutritional info on your dog food and it will tell you how many calories are in a cup of food.

http://www.trainpetdog.com/calorie-calculator.html

What do you think? If you input "your dog's" stats into the calculator, does it match up to what you're feeding every day?

Does the calculator seem accurate to you?

~Karol
 
Not entirely. They've also left out a couple of important categories: Senior dogs and inactive dogs. Sadie doesn't fit into that calculator at all and has gotten fat eating what it suggests for her.

It doesn't work for Ginny either. Ginny is small and active and it says that whether she's a typical activity level or not that she should get a cup of food a day, which is the amount she's gotten fat off of.

Toby eats the amount of food that the calculator says, but I think its a coincidence, since it was wrong or didn't work for the first two dogs.
 
I do strongly believe that all dogs metabolisms are different. Shelties tend to need a lot less calories than other dogs that are their size and weight.

As Rachael would say.....it is not rocket science. If they are too fat, feed less. If they are too skinny, feed more :lol:
 
I am actually underfeeding a bit according to the calculator but then I feed treats a lot too. I tend to use the feel technique, if you can just feel thier ribs the you ok If the ribs dissapear then its diet time.
The shelties are fine our Pom is starting to get a bit overweight at 11 years
old But only very slightly according to the vet, His activity level has really dropped in the last year as well which is the most likely cause.
 
Ok - I tried it. It said that my dogs should be getting 780 Cals per day.

My dog food is 360 cals per cup and they each get 1 1/3 cup per day which means I'm only feeding 480 cals per day. Add treats and it might go to 500 cals.

If this website was accurate, my pups would be svelte! Which they clearly are not, as they both need to lose about 5 lbs minimum.

I wouldn't hang my hat on this website.
 
I think the concept is nice. But the problem is the same as any. All dogs are different.

Both my dogs get the same amount of food (1/2c per day). They are both at good weights (I think). According to the calculator, my senior sedentary dog should be fed the same amount of my active adult dog (1c per day).

In truth, if I fed my dogs 1 cup a day, they'd be fat! Trust me, I know. I used to feed that much to them and boy they were about 5-7lbs heavier than they are now.
 
As an aside....the ad that pops up in this thread is Dr. Bernstein's Weight Loss Clinic....do you suppose he has a dog program? :yes::yes:
 
That web site is very inaccurate!!!! It doesn't ask for the height of your dog or the type. My Bailey has a difficult time with weight control. I feed him 1/3 cup 2x daily. Very careful about his caloric intake!!
 
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