Giant breeds

Breeds with an adult weight over 45 kg — 6 of them, with published ranges and the resting energy requirement each range implies.

• Bloodhound40–54 kg · resting energy 1113–1394 kcal/day
• English Mastiff80–85 kg · resting energy 1872–1960 kcal/day
• Newfoundland dog65–80 kg · resting energy 1602–1872 kcal/day
• Pyrenean Mountain Dog55–75 kg · resting energy 1414–1784 kcal/day
• Rottweiler35–60 kg · resting energy 1007–1509 kcal/day
• St. Bernard (dog breed)54–82 kg · resting energy 1402–1900 kcal/day

The standard curves fit this group worst

Giant breeds age faster than the published ageing curve implies and grow for longer than any other group — many are not at adult weight until well past eighteen months. Both of the general-purpose formulae on this site are therefore at their least reliable here, which is stated plainly rather than buried: see the method page for what each one assumes.

Errors scale with the dog

Resting requirement in this class runs from about 1007 to 1960 kcal per day. Because the absolute numbers are large, a ten per cent misjudgement is a substantial daily surplus — the same proportional error that costs a toy breed a few kilocalories costs a giant breed a couple of hundred.

Feeding through a long growth phase

The extended growth window means puppy feeding rates apply for much longer here than owners of smaller dogs expect, and switching to adult rations too early is as real a problem as staying on puppy food too long is in small breeds. Rate of gain, checked against the breed's published adult range, is the thing worth watching.

Using the calculators with these breeds

Every breed page above runs the calorie calculator pre-set to that breed's range, and the puppy growth check bounded by it, so a projection that falls outside the published range is flagged instead of reported as fact. The figures shown in this list are breed-standard ranges taken from English Wikipedia; they describe the breed, never an individual dog.