How many calories does your dog need per day? Calculated with the WSAVA / NRC veterinary formulas — free, instant, no sign-up.
Vets work out a dog's daily calorie needs in two steps, and this calculator does exactly the same:
The life-stage factors used here follow WSAVA and US National Research Council (NRC) guidance:
Activity then nudges the adult and senior factors down for couch potatoes and up for very active dogs. Genuinely hard-working dogs (sled, herding, sporting) can need 2–5 × RER — if that's your dog, treat the result here as a floor and work with your vet.
A 12 kg neutered adult with moderate activity: RER = 70 × 120.75 ≈ 451 kcal. MER = 451 × 1.6 ≈ 722 kcal per day. On a food with 360 kcal per 100 g, that's about 200 g of food a day, split across meals — minus whatever treats add up to (keep treats under 10% of daily calories).
Knowing your dog needs 722 kcal a day changes nothing on its own — the weight comes off (or stays healthy) when meals are actually measured against it. That's what SaluPaws does: it calculates this same target automatically from your dog's profile, recalculates as weight changes, and lets you log meals, treats and activity against it in seconds. It also checks the name of every logged food against known dog toxins — chocolate, grapes, xylitol, onion and more — and warns you before the entry is saved.
It uses the standard veterinary two-step method. First the Resting Energy Requirement: RER = 70 × (body weight in kg)0.75 kcal per day. Then the RER is multiplied by a life-stage factor — about 1.6 for a neutered adult, 1.8 for an intact adult, 2–3 for growing puppies, around 1.4 for seniors and 1.0 of goal weight for weight loss — to give the Maintenance Energy Requirement (MER), the calories your dog should eat in a day. These are the WSAVA and US National Research Council (NRC) formulas vets use.
A 10 kg dog has a Resting Energy Requirement of about 394 kcal per day (70 × 100.75). A typical neutered adult then needs roughly 394 × 1.6 ≈ 630 kcal per day, while an intact adult needs about 710 kcal. A 10 kg dog on a weight-loss plan would be fed to roughly the RER of its goal weight instead. Use the calculator above to get the number for your dog's exact weight and life stage.
Check the calorie density on the food packaging, usually shown as kcal per 100 g. Then: grams per day = (daily calorie target ÷ kcal per 100 g) × 100. For example, a 630 kcal target on a food with 360 kcal/100 g is about 175 g per day, split across meals. The SaluPaws app does this automatically — you log the food and portion, and it counts the calories against your dog's daily target.
Yes — select the puppy life stage. Puppies under 4 months need roughly 3 × RER and puppies from 4 to 12 months about 2 × RER, because they are growing. Puppy needs change quickly, so recalculate as your puppy gains weight, and confirm feeding amounts with your vet, especially for large breeds where controlled growth matters.
SaluPaws works out your dog's calorie target automatically and tracks every meal against it — with toxic-food alerts built in. Free on iPhone.