The bag says 150g to 240g. Your puppy is eight pounds of appetite who would eat the bag. You have measured it out three times, and it still looks like either far too much or nowhere near enough, and the only thing you are sure of is that getting this wrong matters more now than it ever will again. This guide covers how much to feed a puppy, how often, how to tell you have it right, and when to stop.
The short answer
Feed to the chart on your puppy's food, keyed to the weight you expect them to reach as an adult, not what they weigh today. Split that daily amount across four meals a day up to about four months, three until about six months, then two. Weigh the food on kitchen scales. Then check your puppy's body every fortnight and adjust, because the chart is a starting point and your puppy is the actual answer.
If you take one thing from this guide: a puppy should be lean. A roly-poly puppy is not a healthier puppy, and in a large breed it is a genuine problem rather than a cosmetic one.
Why we are not giving you a gram chart
Every guide on the internet offers a tidy table, and for puppies that table is close to meaningless. A puppy's daily amount depends on four things at once: their current weight, their age in weeks, the adult size they are growing towards, and the calorie density of the particular food in front of them. Foods vary enormously on that last one. A rich, high-meat, grain-free kibble can be a third more calorific per gram than a cheaper recipe, so a chart written for one food will overfeed on another by a wide margin.
Growth makes it worse. The amount that is right this week is wrong in a fortnight, in both directions: the quantity climbs steeply through the first few months and then falls back relative to body weight as growth slows.
So the honest answer is that the chart on your own bag, read properly, beats any generic table. Here is how to read it properly.
How to read the chart on the bag
Puppy feeding charts are laid out as a grid. Down one side is the expected adult weight. Across the top is age in months. You find the row for the size your puppy will end up, then the column for how old they are now, and the cell where they meet is the daily amount.
The part people get wrong is the row. It is not your puppy's weight now. A cockapoo puppy who weighs 4kg at twelve weeks is not on the 4kg row; they are on the row for the 10kg to 12kg adult they are becoming. Feeding a growing puppy from their current weight underfeeds them badly.
If you do not know their expected adult weight, ask the breeder what the parents weigh, or ask your vet at the first vaccination appointment. For a crossbreed, the honest answer is a range, so take the middle of it and let the fortnightly body check correct you.
Two more things worth knowing about the cell you land on. It is a daily total, not a per-meal amount, which is the single most common misreading and leads to feeding three or four times too much. And it almost always assumes dry food only, so if you are feeding wet alongside it, the dry amount has to come down.
How many meals a day
A puppy's stomach is small and their energy demand is enormous, which is why the day gets split up. The usual pattern:
- 8 to 16 weeks: four meals a day, evenly spaced.
- 4 to 6 months: three meals a day.
- 6 months onwards: two meals a day, which most dogs then stay on for life.
The daily total does not change when you drop a meal. You are redistributing the same food, not cutting it. Dropping from four meals to three means three slightly larger ones.
Keep the times fairly consistent. It helps with toilet training, because what goes in on a schedule tends to come out on one, and it also means you notice quickly on the day your puppy is not interested in breakfast. A puppy going off their food is worth paying attention to in a way that an adult skipping one meal is not.
Weigh it. Do not use a cup or a scoop
Kitchen scales, every time, at least for the first few months until your eye is trained. A scoop or a mug is unreliable because kibble settles differently depending on piece size, how you fill it and how far you shake it down, and the error runs in the region of 20 per cent either way. On an adult dog that is a slow drift towards a weight problem. On a puppy it is a growth curve that is too fast or too slow at exactly the age it matters.
The practical version: weigh the whole day's food into a tub in the morning, then feed from the tub. You get accuracy without standing over the scales four times a day, and anyone else in the house can feed the puppy without guessing.
Checking you have it right: the fortnightly body check
Charts are a starting point. Your hands are the measurement. Every two weeks, do this:
Ribs. Run your fingertips along their side with gentle pressure. You should feel the ribs easily, like running your hand over the back of your knuckles. If you have to press to find them, that is too much food. If you can see them clearly from across the room, that is not enough.
From above. Stand over your puppy and look down. There should be a visible narrowing behind the ribs. A straight line from shoulder to hip means they are carrying too much.
From the side. The belly should rise up towards the back legs rather than hanging level with the chest.
Adjust by about 10 per cent at a time and wait a fortnight before judging the result. Big swings in a puppy's intake are unhelpful, and nothing about growth happens fast enough to read in three days.
It is also worth weighing your puppy regularly, on the vet's scales if yours will not do it. Steady, unremarkable weight gain is what you want. A sudden jump or a flat week are both worth a conversation.
Large breeds are a separate problem
If your puppy is heading for 25kg or more, overfeeding is not just about weight. Growing too fast puts load through joints and growth plates that are still soft, and it is associated with developmental skeletal problems that a dog carries for life. The advice for big puppies is deliberately conservative: keep them lean, resist the urge to push growth, and use a food formulated for their size if you can, because the calcium and phosphorus balance matters as well as the calorie count.
Large breeds also grow for longer. A small dog is structurally finished at around ten months; a big one can still be filling out at eighteen months to two years, and stays on puppy food accordingly.
Treats count, and they count more now
You are going to be doing a lot of training, and training runs on food. The rule of thumb is that treats should stay under about a tenth of the daily calories, and on a puppy that tenth is a very small pile. The way round it is not to train less. It is to take the training food out of the daily ration: set aside a portion of the day's kibble in a pot and use that as rewards, so the reward budget comes out of the meal budget rather than on top of it.
Where you want something more motivating than kibble, break it small. A puppy does not care about the size of the piece, only that a piece arrived. Lily's Kitchen Organic Cheese and Apple Training Treats at £3.49 are made for this and break down into a lot of rewards per bag.
One thing not to do: no cooked bones, no fatty leftovers, and nothing from the table during the week you are also trying to work out whether a food suits them. You cannot read the result of a food if the inputs keep changing.
Switching from the breeder's or rescue's food
Whatever your puppy arrived eating, keep feeding it for the first week or so. A new home, a new routine and new people are already a great deal of change for a digestive system, and a food change on top of it is how you end up unable to tell whether the loose stools are stress or diet.
When you do change, go slowly: a quarter new food for two days, half for two days, three quarters for two days, all new by about day seven, and stretch it to ten or fourteen days if their stomach is at all delicate. Our guide to the best dog food for sensitive stomachs goes through this in more detail if the first attempt does not go smoothly.
When to move to adult food
Roughly, and it varies with size:
- Small breeds, under about 10kg: around 10 to 12 months.
- Medium breeds: around 12 months.
- Large and giant breeds: 18 months to two years.
Make the change the same way you made the first one, over a week or so. The amount comes down at the same time, because adult maintenance is a good deal less food per kilo than growth was, and a dog left on puppy portions after they have stopped growing puts on weight quickly. The first fortnight on adult food is a good moment to go back to the body check and recalibrate. Our guide to how much dry food to feed a dog picks up exactly where this one stops.
What we stock for puppies, honestly
We will be straight with you here, because it matters when you are choosing: our food range is built around adult dogs, and we currently stock one puppy-formulated food.
AATU Salmon Dry Food for Puppies
£22.79 for 1.5kg, £55.99 for 5kg. AATU is built on an 80/20 philosophy: 80 per cent single-source meat or fish and 20 per cent of a blend of vegetables, fruits, herbs and botanicals, with no grain. This recipe is 80 per cent salmon, which is naturally rich in omega oils, and it is grain free and gluten free with no artificial colours, preservatives or flavours. It is cooked low and slow in small batches, and it is formulated specifically for growing puppies. The feeding guide is printed on the pack.
Start with the 1.5kg bag rather than the 5kg. Puppies can be particular, and a small bag is a cheaper way to find out that this one is not for them. It is also the right size if you are changing food gradually, because you only need a little at first.
The honest caveats. Our Happy Dog Sensible range and the rest of the AATU dry recipes are formulated for adult dogs, not puppies. Our Pure wet tins are single-protein complete foods, but their packs do not state a puppy life stage, so if you want to feed wet food to a puppy, ask your vet which recipe and how much rather than assuming. If you have your heart set on a particular adult food, the answer is to wait until they are old enough rather than to feed it early.
The other puppy thing worth having
Separately from food: the New Puppy Starter Kit from £64.99 pairs a handmade leather collar and lead with a toy and a gift, sized from XS. It is the bundle we put together because the first week is when people buy four things separately and then discover the collar is too big.
What it costs
A small puppy eating 100g to 150g a day gets about 10 to 15 days from a 1.5kg bag at £22.79, so roughly £1.50 to £2.30 a day while they are tiny. The 5kg bag at £55.99 works out cheaper per kilo and makes sense once you know the food suits them and the daily amount has climbed.
Those are starting figures, not a budget. A puppy's intake rises for months before it levels off, and a big breed's food bill at twelve months looks nothing like their bill at twelve weeks. Free UK delivery on orders over £30, which a 5kg bag clears on its own.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I feed my puppy?
Use the chart on your puppy's food, keyed to their expected adult weight and their current age in months, and treat the figure as a daily total to split across several meals. Weigh the food on scales rather than using a scoop. Then check their body every fortnight: you should be able to feel the ribs easily without pressing, and see a waist behind the ribs from above. Adjust by about 10 per cent at a time.
How many times a day should a puppy eat?
Four meals a day up to about four months, three meals from four to six months, and two meals a day from six months onwards. The daily total stays the same when you drop a meal, so the remaining meals get larger. Keeping meal times consistent also helps with toilet training.
Should I feed my puppy by their current weight or their adult weight?
Their expected adult weight. Puppy feeding charts list adult weight down one side and age across the top, and using today's weight instead will underfeed a growing puppy significantly. If you do not know their adult weight, ask the breeder what the parents weigh or ask your vet, and for a crossbreed take the middle of a sensible range.
Is my puppy overweight?
Run your fingers along their ribs: you should feel them easily, with a thin covering, without having to press. Looking down from above there should be a clear narrowing behind the ribs, and from the side the belly should tuck up towards the back legs. A puppy who looks round, with no waist and ribs you have to hunt for, is being overfed. Puppies should be lean, and in large breeds growing too fast carries real joint risk.
When should a puppy switch to adult food?
Small breeds under about 10kg at around 10 to 12 months, medium breeds at around 12 months, and large or giant breeds between 18 months and two years. Change over about a week, mixing increasing amounts of the new food in, and reduce the daily amount at the same time, because an adult dog needs less food per kilo than a growing puppy.
Can I feed a puppy adult dog food?
Not as their main diet. Puppy recipes carry more energy and a different mineral balance for growth, and large-breed puppies in particular need controlled calcium. Feeding adult food through the growth period is not a saving worth making. If the food you want is adult only, wait until they have finished growing.
How many treats can a puppy have?
Keep treats under roughly a tenth of their daily calories, which on a puppy is a very small amount. The practical fix for training is to take the rewards out of the daily ration: put aside some of the day's kibble in a pot and use that, so the treats come out of the meals rather than on top of them. Break any other treats into small pieces.
My puppy is always hungry. Am I underfeeding?
Probably not. Most puppies behave as though they are starving regardless of how much they have eaten, so appetite is a poor guide. Judge it on the body check and on steady weight gain instead. If they are lean to the point that the ribs are clearly visible, or weight gain has flattened, increase the amount by about 10 per cent and reassess in a fortnight. If they are gaining steadily and you can feel the ribs easily, they are fine and merely optimistic.
Featured in this guide: AATU Salmon Dry Food for Puppies · Lily's Kitchen Cheese and Apple Training Treats · New Puppy Starter Kit · the full dry food range. Free UK delivery over £30.
This guide is general information, not veterinary advice. Your vet knows your puppy and is the right person to ask about growth, weight and anything that concerns you.