Why Puppies, Adults, Seniors, and Nursing Moms All Eat a Different Percentage of Their Body Weight

"How much should I feed?" sounds like it should have one simple answer. It doesn't — and that's not us overcomplicating things. A growing puppy, a couch-potato senior, and a mother nursing a litter of eight all have wildly different energy demands, and a raw diet has to flex to match. Here's the actual logic behind the percentages, so the numbers make sense instead of feeling arbitrary.

The Baseline: Adult Maintenance

For a healthy adult dog at a stable, ideal weight, the general starting point is 2–3% of body weight per day, split across one or two meals.

Where in that range a specific dog lands depends on activity level: a mostly-sedentary senior or an already slightly heavy dog often does better closer to 1.5-2%, while a genuinely active adult (daily runs, hiking, working dogs) can need 3% or more just to hold steady weight. This is why there is never a single universal number for how much to feed a dog; it is a starting range you adjust by watching the dog in front of you, not a fixed rule.

Puppies: Higher Now, Tapering as They Grow

Puppies are building an entire skeleton, muscle mass, and organ systems from nothing, on a metabolism running well above an adult's. That is why puppy feeding amounts are usually expressed as a percentage of current body weight, and why the percentage itself is higher and constantly sliding down as they mature - roughly 8-10% for very young puppies, gradually tapering through the 4-8% range as they move through adolescence, and settling near adult maintenance (2-3%) once growth largely finishes, typically by 10-12 months for smaller breeds and later for giant breeds.

Large and giant-breed puppies deserve extra caution here - growing too fast on too much food is linked to skeletal problems later on, so resist the urge to overfeed just because a puppy is always hungry.

Pregnant and Nursing Dogs: The Biggest Jump of Any Life Stage

We have covered this one in detail in its own guide, but the short version bears repeating: early pregnancy barely changes intake, but by peak lactation a mother nursing a full litter can need two to three times her normal maintenance amount - sometimes more with a large litter. This is not a stage to estimate loosely; underfeeding here shows up fast as low milk supply or a mother who cannot hold her own weight.

Seniors: Often Less, Not More

As activity and metabolic rate naturally decline with age, many senior dogs do better on less food than they needed in their prime - often 1.5-2% of ideal body weight, sometimes less for a genuinely low-activity senior. This is not about restricting an older dog; it is about recognizing that the same portion that kept a 3-year-old lean can quietly become too much for the same dog at 11.

Cats Follow the Same Logic

It is not just a dog phenomenon - kittens need a noticeably higher percentage of body weight than adult cats for the same growth reasons, and most adult cats settle in a similar 2-4% range depending on activity and body condition.

Every Dog Is Still an Individual

These are starting ranges, not prescriptions - breed, metabolism, spay/neuter status, climate, and genuine activity level all nudge the right number up or down. The real test is always the dog: ribs you can feel but not see, a visible waist from above, steady energy. If a dog is gaining or losing when they should not be, that is the signal to adjust the percentage, not just the brand of food.

Where the Calculator Comes In

This is exactly why our Food Calculator does not use one flat number - it is built around four life stages (Puppy/Kitten, Adult, Senior, Pregnant/Nursing) plus three activity levels for adult dogs, so it lands on a starting percentage that actually matches the research-backed ranges above instead of a generic guess. Use it as your starting point, weigh your dog regularly, and adjust from there - and if you are ever unsure which stage or activity level fits, our team or your vet can help you fine-tune it.