Portion calculator

How much food goes in the bowl

Four fields are enough. The result updates as you type — nothing is sent anywhere.

Your dog

Weigh the dog, not the memory of the dog. A 2 kg error moves the portion by about 80 g a day.

Neutered dogs need roughly 15% fewer calories at the same weight.

Feeling for the ribs behind the shoulder is the whole test. If you have to press, the dog is carrying extra weight.

Allergies or reactions

Tick only what a vet has suspected or confirmed.

Diagnosed conditions

If any of these is ticked, the tool stops and gives you numbers for your vet instead of a recipe.

Your data stays in this tab. Nothing is uploaded, stored or tracked.

How the number is built

The calorie figure comes from the resting energy requirement, the same starting point every veterinary nutrition calculator uses:

RER = 70 × (body weight in kg)0.75

A 25 kg dog has a RER of about 783 kcal. That is what the body burns doing nothing. Then a life-stage factor multiplies it: 1.4 for a quiet neutered adult, 1.6 for a normal one, 2.0 to 2.6 for a working dog, 2.0 for a puppy between four and twelve months, 3.0 under four months. The result is the calories for the day.

To turn calories into food, the calculator assumes a cooked home diet delivers about 1.3 kcal per gram. Chicken breast plus rice plus vegetables, cooked and mixed, lands close to that. A fattier mix delivers more calories per gram, so the same bowl feeds more — which is exactly how dogs gain weight on home cooking without anyone noticing.

Why the portion matters more than the recipe

Almost every homemade diet that goes wrong goes wrong in quantity, not ingredients. A dog fed 20% over its needs gains roughly a kilogram of fat every six to eight weeks. On a dog that should weigh 25 kg, that is clinical obesity inside a year, with the joints and the pancreas paying for it.

Weigh the food. A cup is not a unit — the same cup holds 90 g of one mix and 160 g of another. A kitchen scale costs less than a bag of treats and it is the single most useful thing you can buy after deciding to cook for your dog.

Weigh the dog, then weigh the dog again

The number this page gives you is a starting estimate, not a law. Feed it for two weeks and weigh the dog on the same scale. Losing weight on a portion meant for maintenance means the factor was too low. Gaining means it was too high. Adjust by 10% and check again in two weeks. That feedback loop is worth more than any formula.