About
DogFoodCalculator.online exists because of a simple frustration: the tools that rank for "how much should I feed my dog" are mostly brand product-selectors, email-gated funnels, or clone calculators with the same formula and no sourcing.
So we built the boring, correct version: the published veterinary formula (AAHA · Pet Nutrition Alliance · Merck · WSAVA), applied identically to every food, with real energy densities, worked tables generated by the same engine, and the formula's limits printed next to every result.
Principles
- Brand-neutral. No food company pays for placement in a result. The math does not know what bag you bought.
- No gates. No sign-up, no email wall, no "unlock your result". The answer is the product.
- Honest uncertainty. Formulas estimate; scales decide. We say so on every page.
- Free. Supported by clearly-marked advertising and, where a recommendation genuinely fits, affiliate links — never by selling placement in calculations.
Review and authorship
The formulas on this site were reviewed by an independent veterinary consultant — the same person who checks the factors and sources on the method page. A named reviewer, with credentials, will be published here once confirmed; until then, every factor and source is documented on the method page so the work can be checked without taking our word for it. No author name is invented and no review is claimed that did not happen.
Last updated: 7 November 2026
Site questions
Is this site really free?
Yes — every calculator, table and breed page is free, with no sign-up and no email gate. The site costs little to run; if advertising or affiliate links ever appear, they will be labelled and will never change a calculation.
Who maintains the calculators?
One independent publisher with veterinary-consultant review of the formulas. Brand input is limited to published energy density; no manufacturer reviews or approves any page before it ships.
Where do the numbers come from?
The formulas and factors come from AAHA, the Pet Nutrition Alliance, the Merck Veterinary Manual, WSAVA and FEDIAF — detailed, with worked examples, on the method page linked from every footer.
I found an error — what happens next?
Write via the contact page with the page, your inputs and what you expected. Reproducible errors are fixed first, across every affected page, with the change dated on the method page.
What this site deliberately does not do is as much a part of the project as what it does. There are no star ratings we invented, no '10,000 happy dogs' counters, no before-and-after stories, and no rankings of foods — because a calculator's credibility comes from showing its arithmetic, not from testimonials. The tools will also happily tell you that a homemade diet without a balancer is incomplete or that a raw ratio is unbalanced, which is not what a sales funnel would say. Independence is the product here; the calculators are how it is delivered.
Working principles: 1) Show the arithmetic — every number on this site can be traced to a formula on the method page. 2) No invented social proof — no ratings, counters or testimonials we cannot verify. 3) Brand-neutral by construction — the same engine for every food, with brand input limited to measured energy density. 4) Say the uncomfortable thing — if a diet pattern is incomplete or a ratio is unbalanced, the page says so. 5) Correct in public — fixes land with dates, not silent edits. These are operating rules, not marketing copy; where we break one, the contact page is the fastest way to make us fix it.