My overweight Lab needs to lose weight. How much raw food to feed?

It depends on what food you are feeding, since the amount of calories per cup can vary tremendously from one brand or formula to another. If Zoey is a bit overweight, I would recommend feeding a weight control formula made by a good quality brand like Royal Canin or Purina ProPlan. These foods are designed to help with weight loss, and will have instructions on the bag for how much to feed each day based on your dog's target weight.

First of all i would not recommend soaking any dog food in water. if she is just slightly overweight you can put her on an over the counter reduced calorie dry food, you can chose the same brand you are using at the moment or any other brand that you find in your pet shop. if she is more than a little bit overweight then she will need a prescription low calorie food from your vet. for each food the quantity will be different but it will be written on the food label with clear instructions.

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.

Hi there and thanks for your question! This all depends on his weight and age. To make a estimate, I would need his exact weight, but in this case I'll estimate given his picture at around 40lbs. If you request a consult with me, we can over this accurate weight so the calculations I have below will be more accurate. RER (resting energy requirement) would be around 611 calories/day but since he is a puppy, he needs roughly 2-3 X this amount, so between 1222 calories and 1835 calories a day. Calories are listed on the back on the food packaging label- they are usually displayed as x amount of calories/ cup or can of food. Hope this helps!

Hi there and thanks for posting on Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! 3/8 of a cup twice daily for a growing labrador sounds a little under the calories he should be getting daily. He should be consuming closer to 2 cups of the royal canin maxi food daily. Chicken stew and rice are not good sources of nutrients for a growing dog and should not replace eating his regular puppy food and should be discontinued. Just feeding more of his puppy food will help him grow and put on healthy weight. Thanks again for posting!

I would feeding him according to the instructions on the label (each food has a different daily allotment). Divide the daily recommendation into three equal portions to feed him three times a day (morning, noon, evening). Once he is six months old, he can be fed twice a day (morning and evening).

Start by looking at the bag of food. There is usually a feeding recommendation on the back based on current puppy weight or on expected adult weight. If you find this information and need help calculating an amount, take a picture and post a new question! It will also help us if you have a current weight on the puppy.