Am I overfeeding my three large dogs with 50 lbs of food weekly?

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!

Yes .5 is half a cup. It is less than the 2/3cup you are currently feeding Tasha (plus the one cup), but based on the calorie amount you provided for one cup and her daily calorie requirement, she should be fed one and a half cups twice a day. As for changing her food, I can't say if she should be fed the same amount with the large breed food because each cup may be a different amount of calories. To figure it out, you divide 1,100 by the the calorie amount of each cup to get the number of cups she should be eating per day. Then divide it into two equal portions per day. I will type out the example for her current food: 1100 calories required by day / 364 calories per cup = 3 cups per day 3 cups per day / 2 meals in a day = 1.5 cups twice a day If you do change her food, it needs to be done slowly to avoid GI upset.

Without knowing her breed of dog, I can't say if 17 pounds is a good weight or not for her. Some dogs do need to eat less based on their activity level, as they may be less active than others. With on a 17 pound dog, 2/3 cup of food per day is fine, especially if it's within her daily caloric range. I feed my Chow, who is 50.6 pounds, 1.5 cups of food per day, and she's a healthy weight. If she needs to lose weight, it sounds like you are doing it in a healthy and safe way, and I would keep going. Typically, dogs are affected by hypothyroidism, so if there was a problem with her thyroid, she would be gaining weight, not losing it.

I calculate that an average caloric intake for an 85# active dog is around 1900 calories a day. Of course all metabolisms are slightly different. Balanceit.com is a great resource to help guide you nutritionally. Good luck and happy cooking!

I think the main thing you will need to do in this case to get him on the path to weight loss is caloric reduction. 4.5 cups of food is a very large amount for this pup. I would go ahead and start by reducing it by about 25% to start and see how things are looking after a week or two. Once he sheds some of that weight, he may want to be a bit more active and willing to do things he wasn't doing previously.

That depends on the food that you are feeding! Different types of dog food will contain a different number of calories per cup of food. I recommend starting with the feeding recommendations found on the bag of food you are using. There will usually be a grid that has the body weight and daily food amount. I recommend dividing the daily food amount into 2 feedings, AM and PM. Some dogs have a higher or lower metabolism than the average dog, so after feeding for a month, I re-evaluate and see if we need to increase or decrease that feeding amount to get them to their ideal body weight.

Unfortunately that answer will depend on a few factors. 4 cups of food a day sounds like a reasonable amount for a young 63 pound dog that is active. My 70 pound dog eats about 3 cups a day and is completely convinced that he is starving every day, but his weight is perfect. It just depends on the dog. So, my first recommendation is to evaluate Cooper's Body Condition Score (BCS). I have included a link below with detailed information about a BCS. https://www.purina.co.uk/dogs/health-and-nutrition/exercise-and-weight-management/dog-body-condition-tool Often, we think a dog with a BCS of 6 or 7 out of 9 is a normal weight when they are actually overweight. If you have any questions about Cooper's weight or how to determine his BCS, then I would certainly consult his veterinarian. Otherwise, if his BCS is normal and he appears to be acting normally otherwise, it might just be the Cooper thinks he should be eating more food than his body actually needs to maintain his weight. Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using PetCoach.