A SHORT GUIDE TO CALCULATING YOUR DOGS ENERGY NEEDS
1) The first step with any home- prepared diet, raw or cooked, is to
know how much your dog weighs. If you use your bathroom scale, weigh
yourself first, then pick up your dog and weigh both of you together
... and subtract the difference. If your dog is too big to pick up, go to
the vet and use their scale if they will let you do that for free,
mine does. No matter how you get it done, you have to know how much
your dog weighs.
2) Now that you know how much your dog weighs in pounds, you must
convert that weight to kilograms. All calculating and amounts use
the metric system of grams and kilos so there is no getting around
this one, but it is easy enough. Here is what you do:
There are 0.4536 grams to a pound.
Multiply your dogs weight in pounds by 0.4536. That's it.
OR:
One kilogram = 2.2 lbs. So you can also divide your dog weight by 2.2.
An example with my dog would be: 40 lbs multiplied by 0 .4536 =
18.14.
If you divide you get the same basic result. 40 lbs divided by 2.2 =
18.18 kilograms. I round down to 18 kilograms either way.
When formulating a recipe for your dog, we will be asking you to
think a bit differently about food and recipes than what you are
used to. Instead of thinking cups and amounts, which measure volume,
we are asking you to think about the actual nutrient content of the
recipe.
To that end, we will be using the National Research Council's
recently published requirements for canines. These numbers are based
on the
dog's body weight (BW) in kilos (kg) calculated " to the power of
0.75".
This is an important concept to know about because a dog's nutrient
requirements are not linear to its body weight. What this means is
that
a 50 lb. dog does not need twice the amount of calories or other
nutrients as a 25 lb dog. Nor do you multiply the requirements of a
25 lb dog by 4 for a 100 lb dog. By following the NRC numbers we are
taking this into consideration, actually thinking in nutrients.
In this way, we can treat our dogs as the unique individuals they
are and feed them accordingly. This may seem confusing at first but
it
will get easier with time as you work with it.
3) Now that you know how much your dog weighs in kilos, it is
necessary
to know how many calories your dog needs to consume every day to
maintain
it's present body weight.
This is surprisingly simple to do.
First find the calculator built into your computer. Open the
calculator,
click on view and choose the word "scientific".
- Type the dogs weight in kilograms into the calculator on the
computer
- Click the key with x^y (this does the "to the power of"
calculation)
- Type in 0.75
- Click the equal sign =. ( the number you get is your dog's BW to
the
power of 0.75)
- Multiply that number by 130. The resulting number is how much
metabolizable energy your dog will need to consume(otherwise know as
how many calories your dog needs daily).
Example:
My dog weighs 18kg, as we found out in step two.
- 18 x^y 0.75 = 8.73.
- 8.73 X 130 = 1,1349.
-Round the number to 1,135, which is the number of calories my dog
would need.
BW "to the power of 0.75" multiplied by the NRC nutrient value =the
amount of calories and/or a nutrient your dog needs.
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