How much should my puppy be fed?

[Emily_loveschickens]

Hi y’all,
I was wondering how much my 7.3 month old Portuguese water dog should be fed a day?
I am starting to feed him on more of a routine with wet food, but I don’t know the proportions. Here are some information about him and the food he is on. He is on the blue buffalo basics puppy food Turkey and sweet potato, and the wet food is the kindfull canned food and occasionally blue Buffalo canned food. he is a seven. Three month old Portuguese water dog he is not neutered and weighs about 45 pounds. I suspect he is not done growing. Once I have taken some pictures of his food etc. I will post them below. Thank you for your feedback!

 

[Emily_loveschickens]

My hopes are to make his a routine feeder so that is why I got the wet food to mix and a tiny bit to encourage him to eat his dry food as he is not crazy about it. Here are the pictures of his food.

Also that dog sniffing the can is not him.
Also I only want to add a little wet food to encourage him to eat the dry not necessarily as his main meal also what are your thoughts on cracking an egg on top of their food?

 

[Emily_loveschickens]

Here’s what I’m thinking for proportions keep in mind we had a huge training day today so he got lots of treats so I’m feeding him less. Also should I be feeding him three meals a day that Is what I have been doing

 

[bellium]

At 7 months old, your pup is not done growing. This can help you calculate how much food you should be feeding based on kcal in your current food. A healthy dog will not voluntarily starve itself to death so my recommendation is a bit of tough love. If dry is what you want your dog to eat, offer the dry and give your dog a set amount of time to eat it, then take it away. Wait until the next meal time and offer. Your dog will learn quickly.

 

[Emily_loveschickens]

Yes I am going to to one meal with wet food though maybe breakfast

 

[sandburRanch]

As i recall 2 meals / day is normal .

You'll know when he is mostly full grown by how attractive a fire hydrant is . If he still squats to pee he's still a pup .

 

[bellium]

Yes I am going to to one meal with wet food though maybe breakfast

I don’t recommend one meal a day, especially for a puppy. Separate the total caloric count into two meals, at 7 months he should be okay not getting three meals daily, but only one is tough on a dog. There are some dogs who will self regulate, and you can put food down for them to eat their fill and leave it down. Every dog I have ever owned would eat themselves silly if I tried that, so I don’t have much experience with free feeding.

 

[Emily_loveschickens]

I don’t recommend one meal a day, especially for a puppy. Separate the total caloric count into two meals, at 7 months he should be okay not getting three meals daily, but only one is tough on a dog. There are some dogs who will self regulate, and you can put food down for them to eat their fill and leave it down. Every dog I have ever owned would eat themselves silly if I tried that, so I don’t have much experience with free feeding.

I meant one meal with wet food and two meals without

 

[Emily_loveschickens]

As i recall 2 meals / day is normal .

You'll know when he is mostly full grown by how attractive a fire hydrant is . If he still squats to pee he's still a pup .

I read in a few places that three meals is best for puppies.
Also he does not squat to Pee but he leans forward

 

[bellium]

that makes much more sense!

you’ll have to look at the nutrition labels for the amounts - a pup his size and growing should be eating around 1300kcal/day so if you use the wet food you’ll have to figure out how much and factor it into your daily intake. Honestly, I wouldn’t sweat it too much. If you don’t want the wet to be part of your long term feeding plan just don’t use it - he’ll eat when he gets hungry enough.

my 14 year old boxer squatted to pee until the day he died, so I guess he was a pup at 14.