How many treats can I give my dog?
Treats must stay under 10% of daily calories — a published rule from WSAVA, not a rule of thumb. This works out your dog’s allowance and shows what common treats actually cost against it.
Daily treat allowance
—
kcal per day
- Daily calories
- —
- Per training session
- —
- WSAVA table says
- —
What fits in that allowance
The rule, and where it comes from
WSAVA, Feeding treats to your dog (2024) states it plainly: “Treats should always make up less than 10% of a dog’s daily calorie intake.” The same document defines a treat broadly — snacks, chews, supplements, and food used to give medication all count. A cheese-wrapped pill is a treat.
WSAVA also publish a lookup table of maximum treat calories by body weight. Those two figures do not agree, and the reason is worth knowing. Working backwards from their table — each allowance divided by 10% to recover the maintenance energy, then divided by resting energy — gives 1.2× at every weight from 2 kg to 45 kg. AAHA give 1.4–1.6 for a neutered adult. So WSAVA’s table assumes a considerably less active dog, and its figures are lower for that reason.
Which to use? If your dog is average or less active, WSAVA’s lower figure is the safer target. If your dog holds a healthy weight on the calculated figure, it is not wrong. Both are on this page so you can see they disagree rather than being told one and not the other.
Why treats cause more problems than owners expect
A treat feels small and a meal feels large, so the treat is not counted. But the allowance is a total, and one item can consume it. For a 44 lb dog the daily allowance is about 106 kcal; a single dried pig’s ear is 242 kcal and a rawhide bone is 700 kcal. The table below shows each item’s share, computed against your dog.
The practical consequence is that treats should replace part of the meal, not be added to it. If a dog gets 20% of its calories from treats and a full bowl of food, it is being overfed by roughly a fifth every day, and the arithmetic is invisible because nobody weighs a biscuit.
Treat energy values
| Treat | Measure | Calories | Share of the allowance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ham | 1 oz / 28 g | 46 | — |
| Lean cooked chicken breast, no skin | 1 oz / 28 g | 47 | — |
| Lean turkey breast, no skin | 1 oz / 28 g | 50 | — |
| Lean cooked beef | 1 oz / 28 g | 64 | — |
| Digestive biscuit | 1 biscuit / 17 g | 75 | — |
| Peanut butter | 1 tbsp | 81 | — |
| Cheddar cheese | 1 oz / 28 g | 120 | — |
| Tripe stick | 1 oz / 28 g | 217 | — |
| Dried pig’s ear | 2 oz / 56 g | 242 | — |
| Rawhide bone | 6.7 oz / 190 g | 700 | — |
The share column fills in once you enter a weight above.
Published treat limits by weight
WSAVA’s own table, for comparison. It assumes roughly 1.2× resting energy rather than the 1.4–1.6 used above.
| Dog’s weight | 2 kg | 4 kg | 6 kg | 8 kg | 10 kg | 15 kg | 20 kg | 25 kg | 30 kg | 35 kg | 40 kg | 45 kg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Max kcal from treats | 14 | 24 | 32 | 40 | 47 | 64 | 79 | 94 | 108 | 121 | 134 | 146 |
Frequently asked questions
How many treats can I give my dog?
Treats should be less than 10% of daily calories, which is a published WSAVA rule rather than a rule of thumb. A 44 lb (20 kg) neutered dog needs roughly 1,060 kcal a day, so its treat allowance is about 106 kcal.
How many calories are in a dog treat?
Widely more than owners expect. WSAVA list ham at 46 kcal per ounce, cheddar cheese at 120, a dried pig’s ear at 242 and a rawhide bone at 700. That last one exceeds the entire daily treat allowance of any dog under about 40 kg.
Can I use treats for training?
Yes, and a training session is the best place for them: a session uses several small pieces rather than one large chew, so the same calories go further. Split the daily allowance across your sessions and use something small and low-calorie.
Is this veterinary advice?
No. It applies a published rule to a calculated calorie requirement. Individual dogs vary, treats are not the only source of extra calories, and a dog on a prescription diet should not be given conventional treats without asking a vet.
Sources
- WSAVA, Feeding treats to your dog (2024). Source of the 10% rule, the allowance table by body weight, and the energy values for common treats. wsava.org
- AAHA, 2021 AAHA Nutrition and Weight Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats, for the life-stage factors used to derive daily calories. aaha.org
The full calorie calculation, including portion sizes, is on the dog calorie and feeding calculator. How these sources were chosen, and what this site does not do: about & methodology.
Educational use only. Not a veterinary service. Treats are not the only source of extra calories, and a dog on a prescription diet should not be given conventional treats without asking a veterinarian. No commercial service is named here because we do not promote commercial services.