What is Your Dog’s Resting Energy Requirements?

Proper nutrition is important to keep your adult dog healthy and performing at his or her best.

How many calories a day does your dog need? Just enter your adult dog’s weight (in lbs) to find out how many calories a day your dog needs, at rest, to maintain its body weight, to lose weight, or to gain weight.

This is meant to be a rough estimate, and is influenced by many factors. For example, dogs who are very active will require more calories, and senior dogs may require less.

You can find how many calories your dog’s food contains (usually per cup) on the bag of dog food along with the other nutrition information.

Example: If your dog food contains 500 calories per cup, and your dog requires 1,000 calories per day, then they will need 2 cups per day. If you feed your dog twice per day, they would get one cup per feeding to sustain their weight at rest.

Note: If your dog is very prone to weight-gain, the RER should be multiplied by 0.8. If you pet is already over-weight, the RER should be based off of your pet’s goal weight rather than current weight.

For specific questions, please contact your Urban Vet Care veterinarian.