How much dog food should I feed my dog daily for their ideal weight?

Hi, thanks for using PetCoach! This isn't an easy question to answer, it depends on if Bruno is a healthy weight. Is he overweight or too thin? I always recommend using the dog food bag as a guideline. If the dog is too heavy then cut back and if too thin then increase. The food my dog eats says he should eat 4 cups per day but 2 cups keeps him at the ideal weight. https://www.petcoach.co/article/how-much-to-feed-a-dog-to-meet-his-energy-needs/

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! For Opie to lose weight gradually and at the same time eat an appropriate amount of food he should be eating about 1,000-1,100 calories per day. How many cups you feed him will of course depend on the caloric content of the food you feed him per cup. That information should be in the back of the bag or possibly online. Exercising him like you are doing will also be key so you are already doing a great job. Keep up the good work! Good luck and have a good night!

Small red dogs can safely be fed once or twice a day based on your schedule or how well they eat. A base starting point for feeding is about 1 cup of food for 20 pounds. This can be varied based on health status and activity level. For him being older I would try twice a day at 1/2 cup each. If he loses weight you know to increase some and vice vera. There is no way to know if his weight is appropriate without feeling him belly and back as the hair hides a lot. Your vet can examine him and tell you for sure and calculate exact calories needed

The general rule of thumb for a maintenance diet is 1 cup of food per 30lbs body weight divided into two meals. This would mean Benji needs about 1/3 cup daily (small dogs don't need as many calories as bigger ones). Different foods will require different amounts as will each dog. More active dogs require more food. You can start with half a cup of food twice daily and see how Benji does with this amount. If he seems hungry after, increase the amount. If he doesn't finish meals, decrease the amount. Monitor his weight and body condition and adjust food as needed to prevent obesity.

Understand the amount of food to feed is based upon how many calories are in the diet, how much exercise the pet gets and Jack's own metabolism. This link will help: https://www.petcoach.co/article/how-much-to-feed-a-dog-to-meet-his-energy-needs/

The feeding recommendations are averages for all dogs. They can vary widely based on metabolism and energy level. Based on the picture you posted of Oliver, his weight looks perfect. If you are feeding him 1 cup twice daily, but his weight stays at 16-17 pounds and your vet says he is a good weight, then I wouldn't change anything. But I find that most dogs need less than the recommendation on the bag as they get older and their metabolism and activity decreases, so be sure to monitor his weight carefully. I hope that was helpful! Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Although its a little hard to tell from the photo both of your pups look to be lean with good muscle mass. To assess body condition what you want to look for are a waist behind the ribs when viewed from above, and that you can feel but not see the spine and ribs. Young active dogs are certainly apt to be a bit leaner. You could certainly consider a diet for active large breed dogs, especially for the Dane mix. To figure out how much to feed you need to know two things. First, you need to find out how many calories are in a cup of your current food. This is sometimes written on the bag or you can go online to the foods website and typically find it. It would be written kcal/cup for dry or kcal/can for canned. Second, you need to figure out what the energy requirements for your dogs are. This will be different for different weights of dogs and for dogs with different lifestyles. A good website to go to to help you with this is the Ohio State University Pet calorie calculator. If you Google OSU dog calorie calculator it should pop up. This will show you how to calculate the energy requirement for your dogs based on their weights, and let you know what factor to multiply by for their lifestyle. Then basically when you know how many calories they should be taking in per day you can figure out how much to feed. Keep in mind if you do this and change the amount you are feeding, if you are seeing weight loss or excessive weight gain you will have to adjust the plan as it's not a perfect system. I hope this helps and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!