Jasper Bravo
Founder and Editor, DogFoodCalculator. He built the calculators on this site and checks every number they publish.
More than five years of hands-on, everyday experience feeding dogs and working out portions in real life. Not a veterinarian, and this site never pretends otherwise.
The person behind the calculators
Jasper Bravo is the founder and editor of DogFoodCalculator. He designed and built every calculator on this site, writes the guides that go with them, and still checks the numbers himself before anything new is published. His experience is practical rather than clinical: more than five years of feeding dogs day to day, weighing portions instead of guessing them, reading food labels properly, and adjusting amounts as dogs grew up, slowed down or needed to lose weight.
DogFoodCalculator exists because of a problem he kept running into. One brand's feeding chart said one amount, another brand's chart said a different one, and neither explained where its numbers came from. Portions changed when he switched foods, even though the dog in front of him had not changed at all. So he went looking for the method vets actually use, found the published formulas behind it, and built the calculator he wished had existed at the start: one that shows its working, uses the kcal figure on your own bag, and states its limits next to the result.
Built on published formulas, shown openly
Every calculator on this site runs on the same published veterinary nutrition method. Resting energy requirement comes from the formula in NRC (2006), Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats: RER = 70 × (body weight in kg)0.75. Daily calories are that figure multiplied by a life-stage factor, the approach set out in the AAHA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines (2021) and the WSAVA Global Nutrition Guidelines, with calorie references cross-checked against the Pet Nutrition Alliance and nutrient guidance from FEDIAF.
Nothing about the method is hidden. The full workings, every factor and every source are set out on the How We Calculate page, and each calculator shows the factor it used next to the result it gives you. If a number on this site cannot be traced back to a published formula or a cited source, it does not go on the site.
How content is checked
Three rules govern what gets published here. First, numbers are formula-checked before publication: the worked examples on the calculator pages are calculated by hand from the stated formula and compared against what the tool returns, and the tables are generated by the same code as the calculators, so the two can never drift apart. Second, sources are cited on the pages that use them, so a claim about a food's energy density or a feeding factor can be followed back to where it came from. Third, mistakes are corrected openly: if you find a wrong number or a confusing explanation, report it through the contact page and it will be fixed, with the page's review date updated. Pages are reviewed again whenever the underlying references change.
What this site is not
Jasper is not a veterinarian, and nothing on this site should be read as veterinary advice. These tools do the arithmetic of feeding: they turn a dog's weight, life stage and food into a sensible starting portion, using formulas published for exactly that purpose. They do not diagnose anything, and they do not replace a vet who knows your dog. Dogs with medical conditions, and any dog whose weight keeps moving the wrong way despite measured portions, need a feeding plan set by their own vet. The honest way to use this site is as a measured starting point: feed the portion, weigh your dog every two weeks, and adjust by about 10% at a time until weight and body condition hold steady.
Pages Jasper maintains
- The calculators — every feeding tool on the site, from the main portion calculator to raw and puppy feeding.
- How We Calculate — the formulas, factors and sources behind every result.
- Embed our calculators — the free widgets that vet clinics, shelters and blogs can put on their own pages.