Feeding a Pointer: calories, life stages and scored picks

The Pointer is a large breed in our profiles: adults run 45 to 75 lb, with a typical adult at 60 lb, and we rate the breed's energy at 5 of 5 with 60 to 120 minutes of exercise a day. Those four facts are enough to do honest feeding math, and they are all this page uses.

This breed has a page of its own because of its large frame, which large breed labels and controlled puppy growth are written for, and a top of scale energy rating. Breeds whose profiles give no such angle are not listed here at all: for them the general guides are the honest answer, and the breed food index says which breeds those are and why. The full breed facts sit on the Pointer profile.

Daily calories for a Pointer

Resting energy need is 70 times body weight in kilograms to the power 0.75. A day's ration is that figure times a life stage factor: 1.4 for an easy keeper or a dog losing weight, 1.6 for a typical neutered adult, 1.8 for a very active adult. Those are the same factors our feeding calculator uses, so the two tools cannot disagree.

Nothing extra rides free: treats, chews and toppers are paid out of the same daily figure, at about a tenth of it, so the main food still supplies nine tenths of the nutrition. The calorie and treat calculator converts that tenth into a daily treat count for a given dog. While a ration settles, weigh the dog monthly; the correct figure is whichever one holds a visible waist, and it shifts with age, neutering and work.

Life stages

Puppy. A Pointer puppy is building a large frame, and big frames must grow slowly: too many calories and too much calcium in the growth months are linked to skeletal problems in large breeds. Feed for the weight the puppy is now, at the growth factor the calculator offers, and prefer a recipe whose own label covers growth of large size dogs where one is available. Our puppy list keeps only recipes whose labels claim the growth stage.

While growing. A Pointer puppy's weight, and so its ration, changes monthly. For a puppy growing toward the breed's typical 60 lb, on the size class growth curve our profiles publish:

Individual puppies run ahead of and behind any curve; the vet's growth checks outrank this table, and a puppy that is gaining too fast is fed for a leaner curve, never starved back to it.

Adult. For most of the breed's 12 to 17 years, the typical adult column is the ration to start from. A Pointer getting only the low end of its profile exercise range (60 minutes a day) sits nearer the easy keeper column; one in daily work or sport sits nearer the active column, and the dog's waist arbitrates between them.

Senior. Old age arrives at about seven years for a large breed, the threshold our senior tools work from. The senior trap is protein: ageing dogs lose muscle, and muscle is defended by protein and exercise, so a senior food that slashes protein along with calories points the wrong way. Our senior list prints each label's protein line where you can see it.

Fuel for a high energy breed

We rate the Pointer at 5 of 5 for energy, with 60 to 120 minutes of exercise a day in the profile. A dog working at that level belongs on the active column of the calorie table, and its food has to carry the load: protein rebuilds what work breaks down. The highest protein recipes we have scored, at 45 percent protein or more on a dry matter basis:

The full pool is our high protein list. On rest days, feed the typical column, not the active one: the difference over a quiet month is real weight.

Starting points from our scored database

Every recipe below was read from its own label and scored under our published rubric. The last column converts a typical adult Pointer's daily calories into that recipe's own measure, using the calorie line the maker prints. The full ranked set is our large breed list; the food finder answers the same database by life stage, format and the proteins a dog must avoid.

At a standard quality tier the typical adult ration above runs about $38 a month for this breed, the same figure our profile publishes; the breakdown by tier is on the Pointer profile and in our food expense calculator. Change foods over about a week, and judge any food by the dog in front of you: steady weight, good coat, normal stools.