to know if you're feeding the right amount, since individuals vary in terms of activity, metabolism, bone size, age and other things, i think the waist is a good indicator of whether the weight is healthy because it shows the proportion of the fat to the body.
i've found it kind of hard to gauge as Zack's hair has grown out since his summer cut. He often looks thick in the middle to me. so i worry that he's putting on too much weight. I think he still has a waist, but it's borderline. He's not a thin dog. Vet says he's just right. He's neither a large nor a small cavalier and he weighs exactly 16 pounds. He's gained about 1 1/2 pounds in the past 5 weeks. I don't think he's eating more but i am watching it closely.
I give a half cup twice a day, plus a carrot stick, and when i'm focusing on training, he was getting tiny pieces of lamb lung fillet (merrick) but right now is getting tiny pieces of charley bears, amounting to about 5 to 8 charley bears a day. a charley bear is a small treat, and i give him about 1/3 of one at a time, sometimes less, sometimes more, just so he tastes it, he's happy with it.
His activity level is moderate at best. It was moderate to active but in the past month i stopped frequent trips to the dog park, which was where he was getting his good full out long runs. He just gets one on average 45 minute walk a day now. It will help when i bet a bike and can have him running every day.
Usually i throw away the kibble bags but yesterday i just got a new bag of Innova regular kibble, not Evo, and it has typical proportions of protein, fat and carbs that many kibbles have.
Looking at their recommendations on the bag, they go by weight of the dog by pounds, and by activity level which includes inactive, moderate, active, performance, and expressed in cups per day.
For a 10 pound inactive dog, they recommend .65 cups a day. For a 20 pound dog, they recommend 1.04 cups a day. So basically a half cup twice a day for an 18 to 20 pound inactive dog. Less for a smaller dog. For a moderately active dog, the numbers are 10 lb dog, .72 cups, 20 lb dog, 1.14 cups. For an active dog, a 10 lb dog should get .79 cups, a 20 lb dog, 1.26 cups. for a performance dog, 10 lbs, one cup a day, 20 lbs, 1 1/2 cups a day.
Even for an active dog, they only recommend 1.66 cups a day for a 30 pound dog. For a moderately active dog, they don't recommend over two cups for dogs under 45 pounds.
So that is a big difference from the Puppy Lovers Soul brand recommendations--maybe their proportions of fat and other ingredients are different, or calories.
The Innova regular is 14% crude fat, and 24% protein (minimums).
It says that the calorie content per cup is 557 calories. Actually it says Kcal. Don't know what the K means.