Best Food for Active Dogs: How to Keep Your Dog in Shape With What’s in the Bowl

Written by the PetFitness team and reviewed by our Certified Canine Fitness Trainers. Last updated October 19, 2026.

You can’t out-walk a bad bowl. We see it every week in the PetFitness program: a dog doing everything right on the exercise side and still carrying ten extra pounds, or a dog that trains hard and never seems to build any muscle, and the answer is almost always in the food. The best food for active dogs isn’t a brand or a bag with a running dog on the front. It’s a set of numbers that match what your dog actually does, a protein level that lets muscle rebuild after work, and a short list of fresh foods that add nutrients without adding much weight. This page covers how to get the calories right, how much protein an active dog really needs, how to read a bag so you’re not guessing, the ten fitness foods we use most as add-ins and treats, what to feed a dog that needs to lose weight versus one that needs to build, when to feed around exercise, and the foods that should never go in the bowl at all.

What “fitness food” actually means for a dog

Food has three jobs in a fit dog, and most owners only think about one of them. The first is energy: enough calories to cover what the dog burns, and not a lot more. That’s the job that decides whether your dog is lean or heavy, and it’s the one that goes wrong most often. The second is building material: protein, specifically the amino acids in it, which is what muscle, tendon, skin and coat are made from. A dog that exercises breaks muscle down and needs the protein to rebuild it, and a dog that doesn’t get enough will train hard and stay soft. The third is support: the fats, minerals and vitamins that keep joints, the immune system and the gut working, which is where things like omega-3 fatty acids come in.

A good complete dog food does all three. The problem is that “complete and balanced” on a bag means the food meets the minimum standard for an average adult dog that does very little. The floor for protein under the AAFCO standard that US foods are formulated to is 18 percent on a dry-matter basis. That’s enough to keep a dog alive and healthy. It isn’t what you’d pick for a dog that runs agility, hikes every weekend or is trying to put muscle back on after an injury. The gap between “meets the minimum” and “right for this dog” is what this page is about.

Step 1: get the calories right

Before you change a single ingredient, get the amount right, because no food keeps a dog in shape if the dog is eating a third more of it than it needs. The feeding chart on the bag is a starting guess based on an average dog, and in our experience it runs generous for most pets, particularly neutered dogs and dogs that spend most of the day asleep. Owners then add treats, table scraps and a dental chew on top, and the dog gains a pound a month without anyone noticing.

The way vets work it out starts with the resting energy requirement, which is 70 multiplied by the dog’s weight in kilograms raised to the power of 0.75, and then multiplies that by a factor for the dog’s life and activity. You don’t need the maths; the table does it for you for a few common weights. Pick the row closest to your dog, then pick the column that actually matches its day, not the day you’d like it to have.

Dog’s weight	Typical neutered adult (walks, some play)	Active dog (daily running, sport, hikes)	Weight loss (based on target weight)
20 lb (9 kg)	about 580 kcal	about 730 kcal	about 365 kcal
35 lb (16 kg)	about 890 kcal	about 1,120 kcal	about 560 kcal
50 lb (23 kg)	about 1,165 kcal	about 1,460 kcal	about 730 kcal
70 lb (32 kg)	about 1,500 kcal	about 1,880 kcal	about 940 kcal
90 lb (41 kg)	about 1,810 kcal	about 2,260 kcal	about 1,130 kcal

Those figures use a multiplier of 1.6 for a typical neutered adult, 2.0 for an active dog, and 1.0 of the target weight for weight loss, which are the standard veterinary starting points. Truly hard-working dogs, the ones pulling sleds, herding all day or hunting through a season, can need two to four times the resting figure, and that’s a different conversation that belongs with your vet. Everything else on this page assumes a pet that exercises, not a dog with a job.

Two rules make the number useful. First, weigh the food on a kitchen scale, at least for the first week, because a “cup” scooped by hand can be 20 percent over a measured cup and most kibble is 350 to 450 calories a cup. Second, treat the number as a starting point and let the scale correct it: weigh the dog every two weeks, and if the weight isn’t moving the way you want, change the daily amount by 10 percent and check again. The full method, with the formula and how to count treats, is in our guide to how many calories a dog needs per day.

A quick word on raised bowls, since they’re in every photo on this page. They’re useful for small dogs, dogs with neck or shoulder stiffness and seniors who struggle to bend. For giant, deep-chested breeds like Great Danes, one well-known study linked raised feeders with a higher risk of bloat, so if you own one, ask your vet before switching. For everyone else, bowl height is a comfort choice, not a fitness one. What’s in the bowl matters far more than how high it sits.

Step 2: how much protein does an active dog need?

Protein is the part of the bowl that decides whether exercise turns into muscle. Dogs are not obligate carnivores like cats, but they are built to run on a diet with a lot of animal protein in it, and a dog that trains needs more than one that doesn’t, because every hard session causes small amounts of muscle breakdown that have to be repaired. Protein also keeps a dog feeling full on fewer calories, which matters when you’re cutting food back for weight loss, and it protects lean mass during a diet so the dog loses fat rather than muscle.

The number on the bag is the trap. “Crude protein 24 percent” on a dry kibble and “crude protein 9 percent” on a canned food look like the kibble wins, but the can is three quarters water. To compare, you convert to dry matter: divide the protein percentage by what’s left after you take the moisture out. The kibble at 10 percent moisture is 24 divided by 90, which is about 27 percent protein. The canned food at 78 percent moisture is 9 divided by 22, which is about 41 percent. Same trick applies to fat. Once you’re comparing dry-matter numbers, these are the ranges we use:

Dog	Protein (dry matter)	Fat (dry matter)	Notes
Legal minimum (AAFCO adult)	18%	5.5%	Enough for a sedentary dog. Too low for a dog that trains.
Typical pet, walks daily	22 to 28%	10 to 15%	Most mainstream adult foods land here.
Active dog, sport or long hikes	26 to 32%	15 to 20%	“Active,” “sport” or “performance” foods.
Working dog, all-day effort	30% plus	20% plus, sometimes much more	Sled and hunting diets. Vet-guided.
Weight loss	28 to 35%	8 to 12%	High protein, low fat, high fibre so the dog loses fat, not muscle.

Where the protein comes from matters as much as how much. Animal protein (chicken, beef, lamb, fish, egg) gives a dog the full set of amino acids in the right proportions; plant protein from peas and lentils counts toward the number on the bag but doesn’t do the same job for muscle. The simple check is the ingredient list: a named meat or meat meal should be first, and ideally one of the first two. “Chicken meal” is not a lesser ingredient, it’s chicken with the water removed, which makes it more concentrated protein than fresh chicken by weight.

One myth to put down: high protein does not damage a healthy dog’s kidneys. That idea came from old studies on dogs that already had kidney disease, and it’s been tested and rejected in healthy dogs repeatedly. The dogs that need protein restricted are the ones whose vet has diagnosed a kidney problem. For a healthy senior, the opposite is true: older dogs lose muscle faster and need more protein per pound to hold onto it, not less, which is why cutting protein in an old dog’s food “to be gentle” tends to make it weaker. Our senior dog exercise guide covers the movement side of that same problem.

Step 3: fat, carbs and what a dog actually runs on

Here’s the part that surprises people who come to dog nutrition from human fitness. People carb-load. Dogs don’t. A dog’s muscles are built to burn fat for sustained work, and a dog on a higher-fat diet can run further before it tires than the same dog on a high-carb one. That’s why sled-dog diets are 50 percent fat or more and why “performance” foods have more fat, not more rice. For a pet that hikes, runs or does an hour of sport a day, a food in the 15 to 20 percent dry-matter fat range is usually right. For a dog that walks around the block and sleeps, that same food is a slow route to being overweight, because fat carries more than twice the calories of protein or carbohydrate.

Carbohydrates aren’t the enemy either. Dogs digest cooked grains well, and oats, brown rice and barley bring fibre, B vitamins and slow energy. The grain-free trend is worth a specific mention: in 2018 the FDA began investigating a possible link between diets heavy in peas, lentils and other legumes and a heart condition called dilated cardiomyopathy. No cause has been proven and the number of reports has fallen, but most veterinary nutritionists still steer active dogs toward grain-inclusive foods unless there’s a diagnosed reason to avoid grain. If your dog is on a legume-heavy grain-free food, it’s a conversation worth having at the next check-up rather than a reason to panic.

Step 4: omega-3 and the joints

Of all the supplements sold for dogs, fish oil is the one with the evidence. The omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA reduce inflammation in joints, and in trials dogs with arthritis given adequate fish oil moved better and some needed less pain medication. For an active dog pounding its joints every day, that’s worth having before there’s a problem rather than after. The catch is dose: the amount in most kibble is too small to matter, and the joint-support doses used in studies are far higher than a capsule of human fish oil. Typical veterinary guidance for joint support works out to tens of milligrams of combined EPA and DHA per kilogram of body weight per day, and the right figure for your dog depends on its weight and health, so ask your vet for the number and then buy a product that states its EPA and DHA content on the label.

Sardines, which are on our list below, are a cheap food source of the same thing. Glucosamine and chondroitin, the other common joint supplements, have mixed evidence; they’re unlikely to hurt, but if you’re buying one thing, buy the fish oil. If your dog already has joint trouble, our guide to exercises for dogs with arthritis pairs with this.

The 10 best fitness foods for dogs

These are the fresh foods we use as add-ins, training rewards and low-calorie fillers in the PetFitness program. None of them replace a complete dog food. What they do is let you reward, bulk out a reduced meal, or add protein and nutrients without wrecking the calorie budget. Everything on the list is safe for a healthy dog in sensible amounts, cheap, and easy to find. Calorie figures are approximate.

Food	Why it earns a place	Calories	How to give it
Carrots	Crunchy, low calorie, fibre and beta carotene. The best training treat there is for most dogs.	About 4 kcal per baby carrot	Raw baby carrots, or a whole carrot to chew. Cut small for little dogs.
Green beans	Almost no calories, lots of fibre. The classic filler for a dog on a diet that acts hungry.	About 15 kcal per half cup	Raw, steamed or frozen. Plain canned is fine if there’s no salt added.
Broccoli	Vitamin C, vitamin K, fibre. Dogs that like crunch love the stalks.	About 15 kcal per half cup	Small amounts, raw or steamed. Too much can upset the stomach.
Pumpkin (plain canned)	Soluble fibre that settles both loose and slow stools. Fills a reduced bowl.	About 5 kcal per tablespoon	A spoonful on the food. Plain pumpkin only, never pie filling.
Blueberries	Antioxidants, tiny calorie cost, easy to carry in a pocket for training.	About 1 kcal each	Fresh or frozen. Frozen ones are a summer favourite.
Apple	Fibre, vitamin C, crunch. Most dogs rate it as a high-value treat.	About 10 kcal per slice	Slices only. No core, no seeds.
Eggs	One of the most complete proteins there is, with the fat to go with it.	About 70 kcal per large egg	Cooked, no butter, no salt. One a day for a large dog, half for small.
Plain cooked chicken	Lean protein for the days a dog has worked hard, or to top up an older dog’s protein.	About 45 kcal per ounce (breast)	Boiled or baked, no skin, no seasoning, no bones.
Sardines	Omega-3 for joints, protein and calcium in one small fish.	About 25 kcal per sardine	Canned in water, no salt added. One or two on the food a few times a week.
Plain yogurt	Protein, calcium and live cultures. A good lick-mat filler after a session.	About 10 kcal per tablespoon	Plain, unsweetened, no xylitol. Skip it if dairy upsets your dog.

Other fresh foods that pass: cucumber, watermelon without the rind or seeds, banana in small amounts, cooked sweet potato, cooked plain fish, and cottage cheese. Cheese works as a very high-value training reward but it’s calorie dense, so it’s for the hard stuff, not the everyday stuff; our guide to whether cheese is safe for dogs has the amounts. Peanut butter is the one that catches people: a single tablespoon is close to 100 calories, which is a tenth of a 50 lb dog’s entire day, and some brands contain xylitol, which is poisonous to dogs. Read the label every time.

How to pick a complete food for an active dog

The fresh foods are the extras. The bag is the foundation, and picking one is simpler than the marketing makes it look. Ignore the front of the bag completely, turn it over, and check these things in order.

First, the AAFCO statement. Somewhere in the small print it should say the food is “complete and balanced” for “adult maintenance” or “all life stages,” and the better version says it was tested in feeding trials rather than only formulated to meet the profile. Second, the first ingredient: a named animal protein, “chicken,” “lamb meal,” “salmon,” not “meat” or “animal by-products.” Third, the guaranteed analysis, converted to dry matter as above, with protein in the range for your dog’s activity from the table. Fourth, calories per cup, which the bag states and which you need for the calorie plan. If you’re feeding a dog that needs to lose weight, a food around 300 calories a cup lets you feed a bowl that looks like a meal; if you’re feeding a dog that works, 450 or more means less bulk in the stomach. Fifth, the company. The questions veterinary nutritionists suggest asking a brand are whether it employs a qualified nutritionist, owns its own plants, runs feeding trials and will tell you the calorie content of its foods on request. The big established brands answer yes to all four. Many boutique brands can’t.

What doesn’t matter much: “grain-free,” “ancestral,” “human-grade,” “holistic,” and the picture on the front. What matters a little, but less than people think: wet versus dry. Wet food is mostly water, so it’s filling for fewer calories, which helps a dieting dog; dry food is cheaper per calorie and easier to measure. Both can be good. Both can be bad.

Does your dog need a “working dog” or performance food?

Probably not, and it’s worth being honest about this because performance foods are expensive and feeding one to a pet that doesn’t need it is one of the fastest ways to make a dog fat. These foods are built for dogs that work for hours: sled teams, field dogs through a hunting season, herding dogs on a working farm, police and military dogs. They run 30 percent protein and 20 percent fat and up, at 450 to 550 calories a cup, so a dog gets a lot of energy from a bowl it can actually finish.

A pet that does an hour of agility three times a week, runs with you on weekends or hikes every Saturday is active, and should be on an active or sport food in the middle row of the protein table, fed to its calorie number. It doesn’t need a sled-dog diet, and if you put it on one you’ll need to feed so little that the dog is hungry and the bowl looks empty. The exceptions are the dogs that are underweight on a normal food despite eating the full amount, usually thin, hard-driving breeds with a job, and dogs recovering from illness or injury that have lost muscle. For those, moving up a tier works, and your vet can help you judge when to move back.

Feeding a dog to lose weight versus feeding a dog to build muscle

These are the two most common reasons people land on this page, and they need different bowls.

Losing weight. If your dog is heavy (check with our body condition guide if you’re not sure), the bowl needs fewer calories but more protein, not less food of the same thing. Cutting the normal food by a third is the mistake: it cuts protein and nutrients by a third too, the dog loses muscle alongside fat, and it’s hungry all day. The better approach is a food in the weight-loss row of the table, higher protein and fibre and lower fat, fed at the weight-loss calorie number for the dog’s target weight, with green beans or pumpkin bulking out the bowl so it looks and feels like a meal. Aim for one to two percent of body weight lost per week, no faster. The full programme, with the weekly weigh-in and how to adjust, is in our dog weight loss plan, and if the weight came on suddenly, read why your dog is gaining weight first, because sometimes it isn’t the food.

Building muscle. A dog that’s lean but soft, or one that lost muscle after an injury or a long rest, needs two things: a reason to build muscle, which is strength work, and the protein to do it with. Food alone won’t add muscle to a dog that doesn’t train, any more than it would for a person. On the food side, move to a food in the 26 to 32 percent protein range with a named meat first, feed at the active calorie number, and add an egg or an ounce or two of plain chicken on the days the dog does strength work. On the training side, hill walks, sit-to-stands, cavaletti and short weight vest walks are what build the back end. Expect visible change over two to three months, not weeks.

When to feed around exercise

Timing matters more for dogs than most owners realise, for two reasons. The first is performance: a dog that exercises on a full stomach is sluggish and more likely to vomit. The second is safety: in large, deep-chested breeds (Great Danes, German Shepherds, Standard Poodles, Weimaraners, Setters and similar), hard exercise soon after a big meal is one of the risk factors for bloat, which is a true emergency. The simple rules:

• Main meal after exercise, not before. Give the dog 20 to 30 minutes to settle and drink first, then feed.
• If the dog eats first, wait at least an hour before anything hard, and two hours or more for a deep-chested breed after a full meal.
• Before a long session, a small snack an hour or two out is fine and can help: a few pieces of kibble, half a banana, a carrot.
• Split the day’s food into two meals rather than one big one. It’s easier on the stomach and reduces the bloat risk in the breeds that have it.
• Water always, before, during and after, in small amounts rather than a huge bowl gulped down at the end.

How much exercise the dog needs in the first place, by age and breed, is in our guide to how much exercise a dog needs per day.

Treats: the 10 percent rule and the swaps that make it easy

Treats are where most good feeding plans fall apart. The rule vets use is that treats, chews and anything that isn’t the main food should stay under 10 percent of the day’s calories. For a 50 lb dog on 1,165 calories, that’s about 115 calories, which is one large dental chew, or a slice of cheese, or a tablespoon of peanut butter. That’s the whole budget. Gone in one go. Training rewards count too, and a dog in a class or working on recall can eat 30 or 40 rewards in a session.

The fix isn’t fewer treats, it’s cheaper ones. Swap the biscuit for a baby carrot and the same 115 calories is nearly thirty rewards. Swap it for blueberries and it’s over a hundred. Our regulars’ favourites for training are carrot pieces, green beans, apple slices, frozen blueberries and, for the hard stuff like recall past another dog, a pea-sized bit of chicken or cheese. For the dog that needs something to chew, a whole raw carrot keeps most dogs busy for ten minutes at four calories. There’s a longer list, with calorie counts, in our guide to low-calorie dog treats.

The thing that doesn’t fit in any budget is the plate. A few bites of what you’re eating usually means fat, salt and seasoning the dog doesn’t need, and the calorie cost is invisible, which is how it gets out of hand. If the family can’t resist, put the dog’s daily treat allowance in a jar on the counter in the morning, and when the jar is empty, the dog is done.

Raw and fresh diets: where we land

Plenty of fit dogs eat raw or home-cooked fresh food and do well on it, and plenty of owners swear by the coat and the stools. Here’s where we land. A fresh diet can be excellent for an active dog if it is complete, which means formulated by a veterinary nutritionist or bought from a company that uses one, because the most common problem with home-prepared diets in the studies that have looked at them is that they’re missing something, often calcium, or they have the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio wrong, and that shows up in bones and joints months later. “Meat and vegetables” is not a complete diet for a dog.

On raw specifically, the major veterinary bodies in the US and UK don’t recommend it, because of the bacterial risk to the dog and more so to the people in the house, particularly children, older adults and anyone with a weak immune system. That’s the position, and it’s based on real contamination findings in commercial raw products. If you feed raw anyway, treat it like raw chicken in your own kitchen: separate boards, hot water, wash the bowl after every meal, and no raw shellfish, which is a different risk again. Cooked prawns are fine as an occasional protein. A lightly cooked fresh diet from a company that publishes its nutritionist’s name gets you most of the upside of raw with much less of the risk, and that’s the version we’d point an active-dog owner to first.

Fresh diets come with a calorie catch that matters for fitness: they’re mostly water, so you need the calorie figure per cup or per pack rather than guessing from the size of the portion, and the portions can look enormous. Get the number, weigh the food, run it through the same plan as kibble. The maths doesn’t change because the food is nicer.

Foods that should never go in the bowl

Everything above assumes a healthy dog and plain food. These are the ones to keep out of reach entirely, because the harm isn’t about amount and some of them are fatal in small doses.

Food	Why
Grapes and raisins	Kidney failure, and the dose that does it varies from dog to dog. Includes grape juice and anything baked with raisins.
Onions, garlic, leeks, chives	Damage red blood cells. Raw, cooked or powdered, so check gravy, stock and baby food.
Chocolate	Theobromine. Darker is worse. A small dog and a bar of dark chocolate is an emergency.
Xylitol (also “birch sugar”)	Drops blood sugar fast and can cause liver failure. In sugar-free gum, some peanut butters, baked goods and toothpaste.
Macadamia nuts	Weakness, tremors and vomiting, sometimes from just a few.
Cooked bones	Splinter. Perforated guts and blocked throats. Chicken and rib bones are the usual offenders.
Alcohol and raw yeast dough	Both produce alcohol in the stomach. Dough also expands.
Avocado, fatty trimmings, salty snacks	Less dramatic, still a problem: stomach upset, pancreatitis from fat, and the pit is a choking hazard.

If your dog eats any of the first seven, call your vet or an animal poison line straight away rather than waiting to see. Baby food and sour cream come up often enough that we’ve covered whether dogs can eat baby food and sour cream separately; the short answer for both is “sometimes, check the label for onion and garlic.”

A sample day for a 50 lb active dog

Putting it together for a healthy, lean, 50 lb dog that does an hour of real exercise a day, at a target of roughly 1,460 calories. Numbers are illustrative; the calories per cup of your food will be different, so use yours.

• Morning, before the walk: nothing, or three or four pieces of kibble from the day’s ration as a “let’s go.” Water.
• After the morning session: half the day’s food, about 1.5 cups of a 400-calorie-per-cup active food (about 600 kcal), with one sardine on top two or three days a week.
• Daytime training and treats: up to about 145 calories: a handful of baby carrots and blueberries, a few pea-sized bits of chicken for the hard rewards, a whole carrot to chew after lunch.
• Evening, after the second walk or strength session: the other half of the food (about 600 kcal), plus one cooked egg on strength days.
• Every two weeks: weigh the dog, run a hand over the ribs, and adjust the food by 10 percent if the trend is wrong.

How to tell it’s working

The scale tells you the direction; the dog tells you the rest. A dog fed right for its work has ribs you can feel easily under a thin layer with light pressure, a waist you can see from above, a tummy that tucks up from the chest to the back legs when you look from the side, a coat that shines, firm stools, and energy that lasts to the end of the walk rather than fading halfway. Muscle shows up as a rounded back end and visible definition on the thighs and shoulders when the dog stands. If the ribs disappear, cut the food. If the hips and spine start to show, add. If the dog is lean but has no muscle, the problem isn’t the bowl, it’s the training.

Give any food change three to four weeks before you judge it, and switch foods over a week, a quarter at a time, so the gut keeps up. If a dog’s weight won’t move in either direction despite the numbers being right, the dog is losing coat, or it’s always hungry or always off its food, that’s a vet visit, because thyroid problems and a handful of other conditions mimic a feeding problem exactly.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best food for active dogs?

A complete food with a named meat first, at least 25 to 26 percent protein and 15 to 20 percent fat on a dry-matter basis, from a company that employs a nutritionist and runs feeding trials, fed by weight to the dog’s calorie number. Brand matters less than those numbers.

Is high protein dog food good for active dogs?

Yes. Active dogs break down and rebuild more muscle than sedentary ones and need the protein to do it. High protein doesn’t harm healthy kidneys. The only dogs that should have protein limited are those with a diagnosed kidney or liver condition, under a vet’s direction.

How much protein does a dog need per day?

The legal minimum is 18 percent of the diet on a dry-matter basis for an adult. For a dog that exercises, 25 to 32 percent is a better range, and senior dogs need the higher end to hold onto muscle. The guaranteed analysis on the bag, converted to dry matter, tells you where your food sits.

What human foods are good for dogs?

Carrots, green beans, broccoli, cucumber, pumpkin, blueberries, apple without the core, banana in moderation, cooked eggs, plain cooked chicken or fish, sardines in water, and plain yogurt. All as extras, not instead of a complete food.

What vegetables can dogs eat?

Carrots, green beans, broccoli, cucumber, celery, peas, pumpkin, cooked sweet potato, zucchini and lettuce are all safe. Avoid onions, garlic, leeks, chives, raw potato and unripe tomato.

Should I feed my dog before or after exercise?

After. Let the dog settle and drink for 20 to 30 minutes, then feed. If you have to feed first, wait at least an hour before hard exercise, and two or more for a deep-chested breed.

Does my dog need supplements?

On a good complete food, usually only one: fish oil for the omega-3s, dosed by weight with your vet’s guidance. Most other supplements either come in the food already or lack good evidence.

What should I feed a dog to help it gain muscle?

Strength work first, because food alone doesn’t build muscle. Then a food with 26 to 32 percent dry-matter protein and a named meat first, fed at the active calorie level, with an egg or some plain chicken on training days.

Is grain-free better for active dogs?

No. There’s no fitness benefit to removing grain for a dog that isn’t allergic to it, and legume-heavy grain-free foods are still under a cloud from the FDA’s heart investigation. Grain-inclusive is the safer default.

How fast should an overweight dog lose weight?

One to two percent of body weight a week. Faster than that and the dog loses muscle. For a 60 lb dog, that’s roughly half a pound to just over a pound a week, and a 10 lb loss takes two to four months.

Where this fits in your dog’s plan

A PetFitness plan sets the food and the exercise together, because neither works alone: the calorie number from the dog’s weight and activity, the protein range for what it’s being asked to do, the treat budget built into the training, and the weigh-in every two weeks that tells you whether to adjust. If you’d like the plan built for your dog, build your dog’s plan here. If you’d rather start on your own tonight: turn the bag over and convert the protein to dry matter, weigh tomorrow’s food instead of scooping it, put a bag of baby carrots in the fridge for training, and book the next weigh-in in your calendar two weeks from today.