Dog Calorie Calculator by Breed
Pick a breed and the whole chain is worked out for you: the breed's adult weight band, the resting energy requirement at each end of that band, and the daily calories that follow. Worked example, on the default breed: a Labrador Retriever spans 55–80 lb (24.9–36.3 kg), which is 780–1,035 kcal a day at rest and 1,092–1,656 kcal a day for a spayed or neutered adult. Every factor and every number is printed on this page, so you can redo the arithmetic yourself.
Choose a breed and the dog's status
Only used where the source gives separate male and female ranges. Rows marked M/F in the table below do.
This is the band the main calculator on the front page uses. Nothing else is added here.
If you have weighed the dog, put it here. The calculator then uses that weight instead of the breed band, and the answer narrows to the factor band alone. Leave it blank to use the breed.
Everything is calculated in your browser. The numbers you type are not uploaded and not stored.
Daily calories
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kcal per day
RER and the daily figures are rounded to the nearest whole calorie, the same rule the front-page calculator uses. The band is hundreds of kcal wide, so only the leading digits carry information.
Choose a breed to see the weight band and the calories.
How a breed becomes a number
Three steps, in this order. A breed gives a weight band. The weight band gives a resting energy requirement at each end. The reference factor turns those into daily calories.
Step 1 RER = 70 × (body weight in kg)0.75
Step 2 RER at the low end of the breed band = 70 × (low kg)0.75
RER at the high end of the breed band = 70 × (high kg)0.75
Step 3 daily calories = RER × reference factor
What each symbol means
- RER — resting energy requirement, in kcal per day. The energy a dog uses at rest: breathing, circulation, digestion, organ function.
- kg — body weight in kilograms. The breed table above prints kilograms, and the tool works from that printed figure, so you can reproduce every step with a calculator.
- 0.75 — the exponent. Energy need does not rise in step with weight; it rises with the three-quarter power of weight. This is the single most important thing on this page, and it is why a breed cannot give you one number.
- reference factor — a published band that converts resting need into a daily allowance for a dog's activity and reproductive status.
The reference factors used here
| Category | Factor | Used when |
|---|---|---|
| Sedentary, or prone to weight gain | 1.0–1.2 × RER | The band above is set to sedentary |
| Typical adult, spayed or neutered | 1.4–1.6 × RER | The default band |
| Typical adult, intact | 1.6–1.8 × RER | The band above is set to intact |
| Light work | 1.6–2.0 × RER | The band above is set to light work |
The RER equation and the four reference factors are the ones published in AAHA 2021, Box 1 — Energy Requirement Calculations. The equation was checked against a university veterinary teaching hospital's published worked example — a 10 kg neutered adult dog, 70 × 100.75 ≈ 394 kcal/day — and against the front-page calculator, which gives 694–794 kcal/day for a 30 lb dog on the same factors.
Where the weight ranges come from
The adult weight ranges in the table are taken from the breed articles on English Wikipedia, retrieved on 8 October 2026; those articles cite the breed standards of the FCI, the American Kennel Club and The Kennel Club. Where the source gives kilograms, the pound column is our conversion, and the other way round. Where the source gives separate male and female ranges, both are kept and the row is marked M/F.
The conversion uses 1 lb = 0.45359237 kg exactly, and the kilogram figure is rounded to one decimal place before the RER is worked out — that is why the numbers here match a calculator fed with the printed kilograms.
Rounding, and how much it costs
- Kilograms: rounded to one decimal place, then used as printed.
- RER: rounded to the nearest whole kcal.
- Daily calories: rounded to the nearest whole kcal — the same rule the front-page calculator uses, so the two pages give the same number for the same dog.
- Worst case from the RER rounding: half a calorie, which is under 0.1% of every figure in the table.
One honesty note about those last digits. The daily figure is a band several hundred kcal wide, so the units digit carries no information at all. It is kept only so that this page and the front-page calculator agree to the calorie. Read the bands as roughly 1,000–1,700 kcal, not as 1,090 versus 1,091.
Adult weight and daily calories, breed by breed
The band shown for each breed is the widest span of the source's adult ranges. Daily calories are for a typical adult that is spayed or neutered, so the factor band is 1.4–1.6 × RER. The last column is how much the weight band alone widens the answer — it is the high kilogram figure divided by the low one, raised to the 0.75 power.
On a narrow screen each row becomes a card.
| Breed | Adult weight (lb) | Adult weight (kg) | Resting energy (kcal/day) | Daily calories (kcal/day) | Weight band widens by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Shepherd | 35–70 | 15.9–31.8 | 557–937 | 780–1,499 | ×1.68 |
| Beagle M/F | 20–25 | 9.1–11.3 | 367–431 | 514–690 | ×1.18 |
| Bernese Mountain Dog M/F | 75–121.3 | 34–55 | 986–1,414 | 1,380–2,262 | ×1.43 |
| Border Collie M/F | 26.5–55.1 | 12–25 | 451–783 | 631–1,253 | ×1.73 |
| Boxer M/F | 55–70 | 24.9–31.8 | 780–937 | 1,092–1,499 | ×1.20 |
| Chihuahua | 2.2–6.6 | 1–3 | 70–160 | 98–256 | ×2.28 |
| Dobermann M/F | 70.5–99.2 | 32–45 | 942–1,216 | 1,319–1,946 | ×1.29 |
| English Mastiff | 176.4–187.4 | 80–85 | 1,872–1,960 | 2,621–3,136 | ×1.05 |
| French Bulldog M/F | 17.6–30.9 | 8–14 | 333–507 | 466–811 | ×1.52 |
| German Shepherd M/F | 48.5–88.2 | 22–40 | 711–1,113 | 995–1,781 | ×1.57 |
| Golden Retriever | 55–75 | 24.9–34 | 780–986 | 1,092–1,578 | ×1.26 |
| Labrador Retriever M/F | 55–80 | 24.9–36.3 | 780–1,035 | 1,092–1,656 | ×1.33 |
| Newfoundland M/F | 121.3–176.4 | 55–80 | 1,414–1,872 | 1,980–2,995 | ×1.32 |
| Pembroke Welsh Corgi M/F | 24–31 | 10.9–14.1 | 420–509 | 588–814 | ×1.21 |
| Pomeranian | 3–7 | 1.4–3.2 | 90–167 | 126–267 | ×1.86 |
| Pug | 14–18 | 6.4–8.2 | 282–339 | 395–542 | ×1.20 |
| Rottweiler M/F | 77.2–132.3 | 35–60 | 1,007–1,509 | 1,410–2,414 | ×1.50 |
| Shih Tzu | 8.8–16.5 | 4–7.5 | 198–317 | 277–507 | ×1.60 |
| Siberian Husky M/F | 35–60 | 15.9–27.2 | 557–834 | 780–1,334 | ×1.50 |
| St. Bernard M/F | 120–180 | 54.4–81.6 | 1,402–1,900 | 1,963–3,040 | ×1.36 |
Weight ranges: English Wikipedia breed articles, retrieved 8 October 2026, which cite the FCI, AKC and Kennel Club breed standards. Everything else in this table — the conversions, the resting energy, the daily calories, the widening factor — is calculated here from those ranges using the formula above. The daily-calorie column is our arithmetic, not a published figure.
Why a breed gives you a band, not a number
This is the part most breed charts skip. A breed is a size class, and size enters the equation through a three-quarter power, so the arithmetic does not behave the way people expect.
Doubling the weight does not double the calories
20.75 = 1.6818
A dog twice as heavy as another needs about 68% more resting energy, not 100% more. That single fact is why a Great Dane and a Chihuahua are much closer together in calories than they are in weight: the Chihuahua tops out at 3 kg and the English Mastiff starts at 80 kg, which is about a 27-fold difference in weight and only about 11.7-fold in resting energy.
Two bands multiply, and the weight band is usually the bigger one
There are two sources of width in the answer. One is the breed's weight band. The other is the reference factor band, which is always 1.143 wide in the default setting (1.6 ÷ 1.4). The weight band is often wider than that.
Take the Labrador Retriever, worked end to end:
weight band 55 lb to 80 lb = 24.9 kg to 36.3 kg weight widens (36.3 / 24.9)^0.75 = ×1.33 RER low end 70 × 24.9^0.75 = 780 kcal/day RER high end 70 × 36.3^0.75 = 1,035 kcal/day daily calories 780 × 1.4 to 1,035 × 1.6 = 1,092 to 1,656 kcal/day total widening 1,656 / 1,092 = ×1.52
So the weight band contributes about ×1.33 and the factor band about ×1.14, and together they land at ×1.52. For most rows in the table the weight band is the larger of the two. That is the honest reason a breed chart cannot give a single calorie figure — and it is also the reason to put the dog on a scale.
What to do with the band
- If you can weigh the dog, do that instead of using the breed — the breed band disappears and only the factor band is left.
- If you cannot, start at the low end of the band for the dog's sex, feed it for two to three weeks, and check the body condition score.
- Treat a move in weight as the signal, not the calorie number. The number is a starting point that the dog's own response corrects.
What this page covers, and what it deliberately does not do
This is not veterinary advice. It is a starting band for feeding a healthy adult dog at a healthy body condition. It does not diagnose anything and it does not replace your veterinary team.
Covers
- Apparently healthy, fully grown dogs at a body condition score of 4 or 5 out of 9.
- Maintenance feeding for the 20 breeds in the table, plus any dog whose weight you can enter directly.
- Weights from 1 lb to 220 lb (about 0.5 kg to 100 kg) in the direct-entry field.
- Dogs only. It is not built for cats.
Deliberately not done here
- No single calorie figure per breed. The source does not support one, and the arithmetic above is the reason.
- No row for a breed whose source gives only a maximum. The Yorkshire Terrier's standard reads “not over 3.2 kg”, which is an upper limit rather than a band, so it is not in the table rather than given an invented lower end. Breeds whose articles carry no numeric weight at all are left out for the same reason.
- No ideal or target weight, and no weight-loss plan. Breed ranges describe what is typical, not what is right for one dog.
- No judgement about whether a diet is complete or balanced. This page works out energy only.
- No breed-specific disease, lifespan or exercise advice. Those are different questions and they need a veterinary source, not a calorie tool.
- No puppy, senior or pregnancy adjustment. Those need a different method; the front-page calculator declines them rather than guessing.
- The numbers you type are not uploaded and not stored. No account is needed, and the calculators set no cookies of their own. The analytics and advertising providers named on the privacy page do set their own; see that page for what they collect.
Do not cut a dog's food sharply, skip meals, or change a prescribed feeding plan because of a number on a screen. If your dog is above or below a healthy body condition, ask your veterinary team for an individual feeding plan and a recheck schedule.
Questions
Is a dog calorie calculator by breed different from a dog food calculator by breed?
Same question, different stopping point. A dog food calculator by breed carries on one more step and turns the calories into cups, cans or grams. This page stops at calories per day, because the portion depends on the food label rather than on the breed. The dog calorie calculator on the front page does that last step, and it also takes a measured weight if you have one.
Can I use it as a dog calorie calculator by breed and weight?
Yes, and that is the better way to use it. Pick the breed to get the starting band, then put the dog's actual weight in the optional field. The answer stops being a breed band and becomes a band around your dog's own weight, which is narrower and more useful.
Why does the same breed give such a wide range?
Because the source's own adult ranges are wide, and because weight enters the formula through the 0.75 power rather than directly. The last column of the table shows how much each breed's weight band widens the answer on its own. A breed is a size class; it was never a calorie target.
Does breed change the resting energy requirement itself?
Not directly, and that is worth being clear about. In the equation used here, the only input is body weight in kilograms. Breed matters because it predicts a weight band, and because the published factors differ by activity and reproductive status — not because there is a separate breed coefficient. This page does not invent one.
What about a mixed-breed dog?
Use the breed it most resembles to get a starting band, then weigh the dog and enter the weight. Once a measured weight is in, the breed has done its job and the answer no longer depends on it.
Why is there no Yorkshire Terrier row?
Its standard gives an upper limit — “not over 3.2 kg” — rather than a range. Turning that into a band would mean inventing the low end, so the breed is left out and said so rather than filled in. Enter the dog's weight directly and the calculator will still work.
Is it free, and do I need an account?
It is free and there is no sign-up, no login and no pop-up. The calculation runs in your browser and nothing you type is stored or sent.
Is this veterinary advice?
No. It is a starting estimate for a healthy adult dog at a healthy body condition. If your dog is unwell, on a prescribed diet, pregnant, nursing or growing, ask your veterinary team instead.