Puppy Feeding Chart by Age

The first-year feeding timeline

This is the AKC’s own timeline for a puppy’s first year, quoted rather than paraphrased. It covers how many meals a day and what kind of food — and deliberately not a number of cups.

6–12 weeks

“Growing puppies should be fed puppy food, a diet specially formulated to meet the nutritional needs of puppies for normal development. Feeding your puppy with adult dog food will rob your puppy of important nutrients. Four feedings a day are usually adequate to meet nutritional demands.”

“Large breed puppies should be fed unmoistened dry puppy food by 9 or 10 weeks; small dogs by 12 or 13 weeks.”

3–6 months

“Sometime during this period, decrease feedings from four to three a day. A puppy should be losing their potbelly and pudginess by 12 weeks. If they are still roly-poly at this age, continue to feed puppy-size portions until their body type matures.”

6–12 months

“Begin feeding your puppy twice daily. If your puppy is spayed or neutered during this timeframe, it’s important to note that altering lowers your puppy’s energy requirements slightly. If they’ve had this procedure, switch from nutrient-rich puppy food to adult maintenance dog food. Small breed puppies can make the switch to adult food at 7 to 9 months; larger breeds at 12, 13, even 14 months. Err on the side of caution: Better to be on puppy food a little too long than not long enough.”

After 1 year

“Most owners will choose to feed adult dogs their daily amount of food split between two meals.”

Two practical rules from the same article

• “To discourage picky habits, feed at regular times in regular amounts and don’t leave food down for more than 15 minutes.”
• “Weigh the puppy weekly and record their progress, comparing them to breed-appropriate weight charts.”

Feeding chart by age

The same timeline as a table. The last column is the part people ask for and the part no authority publishes — which is why it points at your bag instead of a number.

How much per meal

You will find plenty of pages that give you a figure like “a 10-week-old Labrador eats 2½ cups a day”. We are not going to add to them, because the number depends on things that page cannot know: the calorie density of your particular food, and your puppy’s own growth rate.

What we can do instead is the arithmetic you would otherwise do in your head:

1. Find the amount on your bag. Every complete puppy food carries a feeding table with your puppy’s current weight down one side and the amount per day on the other. Use the puppy row, not the adult row.
2. Enter that daily amount in the calculator above, along with your puppy’s age. It divides by the right number of meals for that age.
3. Feed that for two to three weeks, then check body condition — the next section.
4. Adjust from there. Gaining too fast, feed a little less; ribs too visible, a little more.

A note on bags that give a range: where two weights are close together, take the lower end if your puppy is lean and the upper end if it is solid — then let the body condition check settle it.

Judging it by body condition

Since the amount comes down to body condition, this is the skill worth learning. It takes ten seconds once you know what you are feeling for.

Run your hands along the puppy’s ribcage. You want the same feel as the back of your own hand: the ribs easy to find under a thin covering, without pressing. From above there should be a visible waist behind the ribs, and from the side the belly should tuck up rather than sag.

• Ribs buried under padding, no waist → the puppy is carrying extra. Feed a little less and check again in two weeks.
• Ribs, spine, and hip bones sharp and visible → under-condition. Feed more, and mention it at the next vet visit.
• Ribs easy to feel, waist visible, belly tucked → ideal. Carry on as you are.

The AKC article also explains why this matters more in a puppy than in an adult: “A young dog carrying too much weight has an increased risk of orthopedic problems, due to stress on immature joints.”

WSAVA publishes a free 9-point body condition score chart for dogs, with each point as a silhouette and a hands-on description. Print it and keep it by the food bin.

Switching to adult food

The AKC gives a range rather than a single date, and it differs by size:

The article’s own advice on timing is worth repeating: “Err on the side of caution: Better to be on puppy food a little too long than not long enough.”

It also flags something easy to miss: if your puppy is spayed or neutered during this window, “altering lowers your puppy’s energy requirements slightly”, and that is the point at which the article suggests switching to adult maintenance food.

Make the change gradually — the article warns that a sudden change may cause stomach upset or diarrhea. Our dog feeding calculator covers the label side of this.

Large breeds and small breeds

Puppies are not one group, and the AKC splits them at a specific line: adult weight under 20 lb is a small breed; 20 lb and up is a large breed.

Large-breed puppies are also the group where overfeeding carries the clearest risk, which is why the article mentions unmoistened dry food earlier for them and warns about joint stress. If you have a large-breed puppy, this is a conversation worth having with your vet and your breeder rather than a decision to take from a chart.

Six feeding mistakes

What to buy

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The links below are affiliate links — they cost you nothing extra. This page contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

We do not show prices and we do not rank foods. The label requirement is that a food claiming to be complete and balanced for growth carries feeding directions — that label is what you feed from.

Questions we get a lot

How we work this out

• The meal schedule is not ours. The number of meals at each age and the food-type timeline are quoted from the AKC article named on this page, and each quotation is marked as a quotation.
• We deliberately do not publish a per-age amount. We looked for an authority that publishes one, and could not find it. The AKC, which does cover puppy feeding in detail, says the portion should be set by body condition. So the page teaches the method instead of inventing the number.
• The calculator only divides your number. You supply the daily amount from your own bag; the tool splits it by the meal count for your puppy’s age. That is the whole calculation.
• The size split uses the AKC’s own line. Under 20 lb adult weight is small breed, 20 lb and up is large breed, per the same article.

What this page will not do: it will not tell you how many cups to feed, which food to choose, or how to handle a puppy with a medical or digestive problem. It also cannot judge your puppy’s body condition — only your hands can do that.