Scratchings-and-Sniffings

---

Figuring Out How Much To Feed Your Pet Posted: 07 Jul 2010 06:28 AM PDT In the last post, I went through a convoluted process tying to figure out how much food to take for Miles on our upcoming backpacking trip. It can be tricky, especially when you consider the tremendous variation in caloric need created by different activity levels. For most people it should be easier. There are basically two ways to arrive at a starting point for how much to feed a pet. I say starting point because there can be significant variation in caloric need even in dogs and cats of similar weight and activity levels. That's important because most problems with excess weight happen because an owner feeds slightly more than a dog or cat needs over a prolonged period of time. As few a 15 extra calories a day over a year can add up to several excess pounds.   The easiest way to estimate how much to feed is to look at the feeding instructions on your bag or can of pet food. Pet food companies base these recommendations on averages. An average 50 pound dog or ten pound cat needs X calories per day. The problem with that approach is that none of our pets are average. Our pets, just like the children in Lake Woebegone, are above average in every way. Besides that, my bag gives a recommendation of 4 to 5 cups for a dog between 76 and 100 pounds, or 35 and 45 kilograms. That's a big weight range.    I like to be more precise. I used the Resting Energy Requirement calculation for Miles. And you can, too. Just take your dogs weight in pounds and convert it to kilograms or KG by dividing by 2.2. If Miles weighs 75 pounds his weight in kilograms is 34 kg. The formula for RER is weight in kg X 30 + 70, so for Miles his RER is 34 X 30 = 1020 + 70 = 1090 kcals. That's the amount of calories I'd need to feed Miles if he sat on the couch all day and watched reruns of Lassie.   A neutered or spayed dog of "normal" activity should get 1.6 X RER or 1090 kcals X 1.6 = 1744 kcals per day for Miles. I'm guessing that normal activity is something like hanging out in the yard or a 30 minute walk per day.   The next thing to do is figure out the caloric content of your pet food. On our bag of Purina ONE, buried towards the bottom of the feeding instructions copy, it states that a cup contains 383 kcals. So, for Miles I'd divide 1744 by 383 and come out with 4.55 cups of food. Suspiciously close to the 4 to 5 cups they suggested I feed in the first place. However, if I chose 4 cups I'd be short changing the Milester by over 200 kcals and if I fed him five cups he'd get 171 kcals more than he needed. Over time both errors would show up in his body condition.   And that brings me to the most important point. You have to couple the estimated amount of calories with educated observation of your pet's body condition. I did a post on ideal body condition for Miles. You can refer to that and this chart from Purina. It's a visual and hands on exercise that you should get in the habit of doing at least once a month. If that silhouette starts to change or those ribs start to get harder to feel cut back the kcals by 10 % or so until things start to look and feel more like ideal body condition.    For cats the RER calculation is 40 X weight in Kg. You can use this handy chart to estimate the factor for activity level and this chart for body condition.   Happy Feeding.

You are subscribed to email updates from Scratchings-and-Sniffings To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610