How much to feed a Bichon Frise: daily amounts by weight and age

Most adult Bichon Frises need somewhere between 60g and 135g of dry food a day, depending on what they weigh.

Two things shift that for this breed in particular. The chart assumes an hour of exercise a day, which is more than most Bichons get, and a dense curly coat makes it very hard to tell by eye whether you've got it right.

So the number is a starting point, and the rest of this page is about adjusting it sensibly. Our small breed recipes use a smaller kibble piece, which suits a dog this size.

How much food does a Bichon Frise need?

For an average adult Bichon of around 4kg, sitting at a healthy body condition, 80g of dry food a day is our published starting point.

We can't give you an exact gram figure that works across every food, because recipes differ in energy density. That's the number of calories packed into each gram, and it changes with how much fat a recipe contains. A more energy-dense food means a smaller portion for the same calories.

The calorie figure for any of our recipes is on the back of the pack near the ingredients, and our help centre explains where to find the kcal information if you'd rather look it up. Adjust by up to 10% either way for activity and body condition.

Bichon Frise feeding chart by weight

These are daily totals, not per-meal amounts. Divide across two meals for an adult dog. They're scaled from our published 4kg figures using metabolic bodyweight, which simply means energy needs rise more slowly than bodyweight does.

Use your dog's ideal weight rather than the number on the scales today, and cross-check the feeding guide on the pack in front of you, because that one is written for that exact recipe.

Why the exercise assumption matters for this breed

Here's something that applies to almost every feeding chart, including ours, and rarely gets said out loud.

Our published figures assume "a low to moderate exercise regime, i.e. one hour a day". PDSA puts a Bichon Frise at around 30 minutes of exercise a day.

If your Bichon is on the shorter end of that, the chart is built for a dog doing roughly double what yours does. That doesn't make the chart wrong. It means the sensible place to start is the lower end of your row, then adjust on body condition over a few weeks.

Plenty of Bichons happily do more than 30 minutes, and an active one may sit comfortably in the middle or top of the range. The point is to check which dog you have rather than assume.

What a Bichon Frise should actually weigh

There's an honest answer to this one, and it surprises most owners: the breed standard doesn't give a weight at all.

The Royal Kennel Club standard specifies an "ideal height 23-28 cms (9-11 ins) at withers" and stops there (The Royal Kennel Club, n.d.). PDSA gives a working range of 4kg to 7kg (PDSA, n.d.-a), which is a wide spread for a small dog.

So if you've been hunting for the number your Bichon should weigh, there isn't an official one. What there is instead is a target your vet can set for your dog, based on frame and body condition, and that's the figure to feed from.

Write it down, feed from that row, and revisit it if your dog's routine changes. Our guide to how much your dog should weigh covers the basics, and our help centre has more on working out an ideal adult bodyweight.

How to tell if you're feeding the right amount

Body condition score is a standardised way of judging how much fat a dog is carrying, and there's a rough version you can do at home.

• Ribs. Run your hands along their sides. You should feel the ribs easily under a thin layer, with the skin moving freely over them.

• Waist from above. Looking down, there should be a narrowing behind the ribcage.

• Tuck from the side. The belly should slope up towards the back legs rather than running level.

Now the bit that's specific to this breed. The standard describes a coat "measuring 7-10 cms (3-4 ins) in length", "fine, silky with soft corkscrew curls" (The Royal Kennel Club, n.d.). You cannot see a waist through four inches of curls, and a freshly groomed Bichon can look like a different dog.

So this breed has to be checked by hand, not by eye. There's a ready-made opportunity most owners already have in the diary, because PDSA notes that coat trimming is usually needed every couple of months, often by a professional groomer (PDSA, n.d.-a).

Ask your groomer to pop your dog on the scales while they're there. Do your own hands-on check the evening before, when the coat is at its longest, and you're least likely to be fooled.

PDSA's body condition guide walks through the full check (PDSA, n.d.-b).

Bichon Frise puppy feeding by age

A Bichon puppy is fed to their expected adult weight, not their current weight, and more often than an adult. Our help centre asks owners of puppies under eight weeks to get in touch rather than work from a chart, which is the right call at that age.

 

For the gram amounts by age, our puppy feeding guide has the full small breed chart, and our puppy recipes come in a small kibble and in trays.

Get the weighing habit going early. It's much easier to keep a dog at a steady weight than to shift it later.

Weighing 80g accurately

Researchers gave 100 dog owners three common measuring devices and asked them to measure out set amounts of dry food. Individual accuracy ranged from about 48% under to 152% over, and the errors were worst on the smallest portions (Coe et al., 2019).

There's a second reason scoops struggle. Kibble density differs between recipes and between batches, so the same scoop really does hold a different weight depending on what's in it. That's simply how a volume measure behaves with an irregular solid.

Digital kitchen scales, weighed in grams, every meal. On 80g a day, a scoop running 15g heavy adds nearly a fifth to what your dog eats, and no one would spot that in a bowl.

Water, and why it matters for this breed

Bladder stones are among the conditions PDSA lists this breed as prone to (PDSA, n.d.-a), and the predisposition runs deeper than most owners realise.

The University of Minnesota's genetics lab reports that the miniature schnauzer and Bichon Frise "have greater than 20 times the risk" of developing calcium oxalate stones compared with mixed breed dogs (University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, n.d.).

Being clear about what that does and doesn't mean. The lab's own position is that breed predispositions point to genetic risk factors. This isn't something a food causes, and it isn't something a food prevents. We won't suggest otherwise.

What an owner can usefully do is simple:

• Keep fresh water available and easy to reach, in more than one spot if your dog spends time in different rooms.

• Remember that wet food brings water in with it, so a mixed diet adds to the day's intake.

• Mention any change in how often your dog is peeing, or any straining or discomfort, to your vet promptly.

If your vet has diagnosed stones, their diet plan takes precedence over anything on this page. Our guide to how much water your dog should drink has more on normal intake.

Tear stains, and whether food has anything to do with it

Tear stains show up on a Bichon because the standard calls for a white coat, not because the breed produces more tears than others.

The staining itself comes from pigments carried in tears, which darken as they sit on the fur. What drives it is how much the eye is watering, and that can come from a blocked tear duct, an irritated eye, hair rubbing against the surface, or simply the shape of the face.

Which is why changing recipes repeatedly is unlikely to sort it. The more useful question for your vet is why the eye is watering in the first place. In the meantime, wiping the area daily with a soft, damp cloth and keeping the hair around the eyes trimmed is what tends to help most.

Keeping a Bichon Frise at a healthy weight

Small dogs have small margins, and treats are where most of it goes wrong. On 80g a day, a single 10g biscuit is more than a tenth of your dog's food for the day.

Two habits do most of the work:

• Count treats inside the daily total, not on top of it, and break biscuits in half.

• Weigh regularly and write it down, so a slow drift shows up as a number rather than as a surprise.

Adjust the portion when the routine changes, particularly after neutering or when the weather cuts walks short. If your vet thinks your Bichon needs to lose weight, that's a plan to make with them and keep reviewing, rather than something to work out alone.

This is a long-lived breed, with PDSA giving an average of over 12 years (PDSA, n.d.-a). Steady habits over that stretch matter far more than any short-term change.

Which Harringtons recipes suit a Bichon Frise

We don't make a Bichon Frise recipe, and we'd never pretend to. What we do make is food that suits a dog this size for particular reasons.

• Small breed recipes use a smaller kibble piece. Depending on your dog, a Bichon sits in either the 1kg to 5kg or the 5kg to 10kg band on the pack, so check which row applies. Turkey and rice comes in 1kg bags, which stay fresh at the rate a small dog gets through them.

• Just 6 keeps things simple with six key ingredients, which some owners prefer for a dog with sensitivities. It comes as dry food and as 380g trays, such as the chicken with vegetables and gravy tray.

• Grain free wet trays are freshly prepared with our FreshCook® process, and suit mixed feeding, a softer texture, or simply more water in the day.

• Our dry recipes lead with freshly prepared meat and fish ingredients, with no artificial colours or flavours.

None of these is better than the others. They do different jobs. Whichever you pick, take the daily amount from that pack's own feeding guide, and all our recipes are developed with veterinary and nutritionist input.

A note on the word hypoallergenic

This word means two different things, and they get tangled constantly.

When people call a Bichon hypoallergenic, they're talking about the dog's coat and whether it suits a person with allergies. Our article on hypoallergenic dog breeds covers that side of it.

A hypoallergenic recipe is a different thing entirely. It's food carefully made to leave out ingredients that some dogs react to. One has nothing to do with the other, and a dog of any breed may or may not need the second.

Switching your Bichon Frise onto a new food

Change food gradually over seven to 10 days, mixing a little more of the new food in each day. Watch for loose stools, a drop in appetite, or a dog who seems uncomfortable, and speak to your vet if it doesn't settle.

If you're mixing in wet food, open trays go into an airtight container in the fridge and get used within two to three days, with a clean spoon each time and binned if they look or smell off. There's more in our guide to storing wet dog food after opening.

If you take one thing from this page, make it a hands-on check. The coat hides a lot, and five seconds of feeling for ribs tells you more than any chart can.