How Much Should You Feed Your Dogs Every Day

How much food should a dog eat per day? Feeding a dog is much complicated than you think. It is even challenging like feeding a human baby. In a previous topic we mentioned dog owners are supposed to feed dogs according to their sizes and growth stages. But in fact, since every dog has its own unique need, more other factors need to be considered. After knowing all the following tips, you can easily feed them the right amount of food, keeping them healthy in different growth stages.

How Much to Feed Neonatal Puppies

In this stage, newborn pups rely on their mom for food and care. So what you need to do is make sure the mom has enough food and nutrients. About 3 - 4 weeks after birth, their teeth begin to come in. They start learning to bite, bark and walk. Then, you can try to wean the pups and prepare some soft dog food for them.

How Much to Feed Puppies

From the beginning, you should prepare an 8-ounce measuring cup, which sometimes may come with the bag of dog food you purchase from stores. Feed 2 - 5% of your dogs’ body weight every day. For instance, if your puppy’s body weight is 3 pounds, it’s recommended to feed him 1/3 cup daily. Please notice that this 1/3 cup is the whole day amount, so you should divide it up into an equal number of meals that you are feeding your puppy. Generally speaking, puppies are so energetic that they ran and roll all the time. Their calorie burns off fast but their stomachs are too small to take a large amount of food at a time. Feed them 3 - 5 times per day!

Food Amount Recommendation for Puppies

How Much to Feed Adult Dogs

After puppies complete the entire growth of their skeleton, different breeds grow at different rates and skeletal development is going to vary. Record your dogs’ weight at a fixed period like every 3 – 4 weeks. Make sure you are giving your dogs a corresponding diet. Though it’s difficult to list the needs for all kinds of breeds, you can roughly calculate the food amount in terms of their weights. You just need to feed an adult dog 2 – 3 times per day.

As for the daily food amount, certainly, you can follow the guideline printed on bags but sometimes it is confusing and misleading. Basically it is based on ideal weight not present weight, so if your puppy is chubby you will continue feeding your puppy and keeping them chubby because you're using their present weight not their ideal weight.

Other Factors Need to Be Considered

While size and age are the prime factors that should be considered, a dog owner must be aware of other factors which may affect the food amount you should offer for your dog. Try to adjust the amount if your dogs run a lot or got tough training today. Your dogs may probably eat less and don’t finish up the food when you change from one brand to another. The left food will mess up your feeding schedule.

How to Know Your Dogs’ Ideal Weight

Research shows that the lifespan of overweight dogs was up to 2.5 years shorter, on average, than the lifespan of dogs with healthy body weight. We dog owners for sure want our family to have a happy, healthy and longer life. So the healthy weight for dogs matters a lot. If you find your dogs are getting obese, do not hesitate to inquire your veterinarian who can help you with what your dogs’ ideal weight should be.

How to Build Good Eating Habits

Under most circumstances, it is not recommended to free-feeding your dogs which will cause overeat. An automatic pet feeder may help you solve this problem if you do not have enough time to feed them multiple times per day. Additionally, a limited dining time can help your dogs to eat regularly. Take away their bowls until next meal if they don’t finish up the meal when time’s up. The hunger will teach them how to build a good eating habit.

An appropriate feeding schedule and right amount of food can make sure your dogs grow up fast but not overweight. Pay more regard to your dogs, take care of their health. Happiness is contagious, dogs are happy, we owners are happy.

Toozey Blog: Dogs Are Family