How much kibble should be given per feeding? How much does your Dood eat?

[Christine & Camus]

I would like to know how much your doodle eats per day.  Camus gets 2 cups of Taste of  the Wild kibble per day, 1 cup AM/1 cup PM, with a couple of tablespoons of grain free canned food mixed in.  He weighs 83/84 lbs.  If I give him any more that 2 level cups (dry measuring cup) per day he gains weight.  He cannot afford to gain any more weight so I stick to 2 cups, but he is ALWAYS hungry. He is ~ 2 1/2 years old and gets Lots of exercise, any very few treats - mostly the mini Zukes. 

[Adina P]

I translate 'ALWAYS hungry' to mean he's a typical lab-mix who lives for food.  Rosco and Boca are the same way.  They would eat all day long if I let them.  Dogs are opportunistic when it comes to food (usually, there's still those DK Doodles who snub their nose at anything but the finest delicacy) and often will gladly eat most anything anytime.  I don't think that's the same as hungry unless something like diabetes or another condition is behind it.

But with each food brand and variety within a brand having different calories, it is hard to compare.  Rosco and Boca get Canidae All Stages and they eat the same amount (3 cups) a day despite the fact they are 20-25 lbs apart--Boca doesn't stop moving and Rosco prefers to lie still.

[Jeanne, Tura and Dolly]

I am wondering about your post. I feed TOTW to my dogs,35 and 50 pounds and they get 2 and 1/2 cups a day. Maybe your dog really is hungry. Has the vet said he is overweight? I wonder what you mean when you say, he can't afford to gain weight? OR maybe he is just a chow hound. I think we always start with the recommendations on the bag....you are feeding less than what is recommended, right? Then I think you need to look at the dog. Thin? Fat? Look at ribs....hips...waist. Does he just look fat because he's a big boy with a lot of hair? I am feeling your dilemma because I have one dog who is thin and one who looks fat but isn't.

[Christine & Camus]

He went up to 86 lbs at one point and the vet said he was overweight.  I was feeding him 3 cups daily so I cut his food back to 2.5 cups daily.  There was no change in his weight so I reduced it to 2 cups daily and he now weighs 83/84 lbs and looks good.  I realize that it is not a tremendous difference in weight, but it really makes a difference in the way he looks. He has a short coat (shedding doodle) so his coat does not really play a role in how he looks.  I can feel his ribs, but not see them as you would with a lean dog.  The best way to describe Camus is to say that even though he is an F1 labradoodle he got a heavy dose of Lab DNA, which means he has a cute lab wiggle and is built more like a lab than a poodle. He is not fat, but 2 cups daily seems like such a small amount for his size.

[Gregg Aprahamian]

Cooper is 1yr old. He eats Wellness Large Bread Puppy 2xday. Following instructions on bag for 68 lb dog...gets 2.3/4 cops morning and night. Cooper likes to grave most of day. Not a complete bowl eater unless we put a tablespoon of chicken stock on food, but we hardly ever do that. He dont feed many snacks at all daily. He eats bully sticks as chew toys and that's about hownwe manage day-day.

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

Luna is 35-37 pounds and eats Wellness Super5mix (right now chicken formula; it's a healthy grain formula)

She gets 1 3/4 cups of food a day, up to 2 cups if she's doing more exercise that day.  If we feed her 2 cups every day she starts to gain weight. She gets half in the morning and half at dinnertime.

Treats are pretty rare, and are usually fruit or veggies, for training (if it's something new, not very often) we use freeze dried liver.  Other than that she always gets a teaspoon of low fat peanut butter in her Kong when we go to work.  

Luna is ALWAYS hungry - even right after eating.  We like to joke that the only parts of her that are like a mini poodle are the way she's always bouncing around and her size ;)

[Pat and Traveler]

Trav weighs 56 pounds, 2 yrs. old, and eats about the same amount as Camus per day.  He gets 1 cup of Paul Newman or Wellness kibble in the morning and 1 cup in the evening, with about 1/2 cup of 'topping' with each meal.  The topping might be canned dog food or some mixture of chicken/ beef/vegetables/fruit/rice.  Strangely, he's been eating about the same amount since he was eight weeks old!  He looks poodly, neither thin or fat.  He gets a few treats during the day--maybe dried liver or just a couple of pieces of his regular kibble.  He doesn't appear to get too hungry, and will leave his food if he doesn't like the topping--he's very picky about canned dog food and the Newman kibble is about the only kind he will eat consistently. 

[BG and Gavin]

Gavin is 66lbs very tall and lean and gets a good amount of exercise.  He is eats GO! grain free food.  He is not a chow hound.  He is fed 2 3/4 cups per day as well as toppers (hard boiled egg or a few pieces of cubed beef or chicken with broth or a couple of tablespoons of canned food).  He does not get many treats, maybe a sweet potato slice per day and a couple of home baked biscuits at bed time.

[BG and Gavin]

Ok I figured out his kibble calories are 1200 per day.  So adding an extra 150 for toppers and snacks I would say he eats 1350 calories per day.  His weight has been  around 66 lbs since he has been 10 months old and he is 2.5 years old now.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

That sounds right to me.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

As Adina mentioned, you can't go by how many cups of food others are feeding, because the calorie content varies greatly from one food to another. What would be interesting and possibly useful for comparison purposes would be for people to look at the calorie content on their dog's food, then calculate how many calories their dog is eating per day.

Jack was getting 2.5 to 3 cups of Orijen before he got sick, along with several jerky treats throughout the day. His new food has far fewer calories per cup and calls for 4.5 cups per day for a dog his size, but he is getting 3.5 cups plus 2.5 cups of fresh boiled chicken instead. For him, the issue has now been trying to gain weight and keep it on.

His IMS calculated his daily calorie requirement at 1600 calories. He now weighs 78 lbs.

I don't know what the numbers are for dogs, but for a human, it takes 3500 calories above or below your daily requirement to gain or lose a pound. This means that if I require 1500 calories per day to maintain my current weight, I would have to eat 2000 calories per day every day for a week to gain one pound in a week, or I would have to eat 1000 calories per day every day for a week to lose one pound. This is why weight loss is slow. (And weight gain kind of creeps up on you.) The numbers for dogs may be different, but the principle is the same. So I'm not sure what period of time passed when Camus's calorie intake was reduced and you didn't see a change in his weight, but maybe it was just that not enough time went by.

Christine, if Camus can tolerate cooked green beans (you can use sodium-free canned beans or frozen beans that you then steam or boil), that's an easy way to give a dog more food without measurably adding calories. Last year there was a DRC dog who was terribly overweight and his owner reduced his kibble by a half cup at each meal and substituted a cup of green beans, which was a significant calorie savings but the dog still got a "lot" of food and was content. He lost 7 lbs in 2 months on that "diet."

[Pat and Traveler]

Karen, it would be interesting to see a calorie count.  The toppings would be a challenge to figure, as they vary daily, at least in this household.  By the way, we got some steam-in-the-bag green beans a couple of weeks ago and that had to be the most revolting food I've seen in a long time!  I don't know if that was just a bad bag or if it always comes out with that horrible smell and taste, but I'm not willing to try again, even for the sake of science.  lol

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I know that we think canned green beans are icky, but dogs don't. You can buy canned sodium free green beans at Walmart for a very reasonable price.

I just boil those "steam in the bag" frozen veggies, and they come out fine. I want them in boiling water for germ-proofing, lol, no matter what the company says.