The amount of calories in a particular amount of dog food is called it’s metabolizable energy or ME.
FOOD CALORIE CALCULATOR APP HOW TO
How to convert the resulting calories to a serving size?Īfter you have entered your dogs ideal weight, their activity level, and hit Calculate above, you are presented with the daily energy requirement in the form of total kilocalories your dog needs per day.īut you don’t just feed your dog all that at once, right? You need to break/divide the total down into the amount of feeding sessions in a day. Confused yet? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one! Most people use the word calorie, but when it comes to nutrition the correct scientific term is kilocalorie, which is why you’ll see it as kcal or Calories ( capital C to denote 1,000 calories) on nutritional food labels. What’s a kilocalorie (kcal)? A unit of food energy, equal to 1,000 calories. Please refrain from using them for growing puppies, pregnant or lactating dogs, and other unique scenarios. Important: The results are intended for adult dogs only. The results are a rough estimate ( since no one knows your dog better than you and your vet), of the amount of energy ( expressed in kilocalories) your dog needs on a daily basis to maintain their lifestyle. However, there are other option that some vets and owners prefers, such as the Maintenance Energy Requirement (MER). Note: It’s worth noting that we use standard factors, typically used by veterinarians. weight gain = 1.2-1.8 x RER for ideal weight.weight loss = 1.0 x RER for ideal weight.The modification is done by applying known multipliers, i.e.: As you can imagine, a dog who does not move around a lot will have a smaller multiplier than say a K-9 police dog who works.
To estimate your dogs total daily energy needs and maintain a healthy body condition score, the resting energy requirement is modified to adjust for your dogs activity level, life stage, and other corresponding factors. Think digestion, heart functions, respiration, brain functions, etc. This is the energy your dog needs to perform essential biological functions. 75 ) = # of resting calories per day.ĭaily Energy Requirements (DER) = RER x Multiplier = # of calories per day adjusted for activity level. Resting Energy Requirements (RER) = ( 70 x Bodyweight in kg ^. Check out these dog food diet types for inspiration: Ancestral, Hypoallergenic, Natural Holistic & Organic, Weight Control, Vegetarian Diet for Dogs.