Evaluation of Multi-Breed Allometric Energy Formulations Against Published Calorimetric Expenditure Data in Canines

This paper discloses in full the allometric energy model that sizes the daily nutrient target for a residual micronutrient correction, and traces the provenance of every constant in it. Daily maintenance energy is sized as MER = 98 · BW^0.64 · M for dogs and 90 · BW^0.67 · M for cats, where M is a five-axis additive metabolic multiplier clamped per species. The canine exponent 0.64 is a directly measured value, taken from whole-body calorimetry in 22 dogs of seven breeds spanning 5.8–48.8 kg [1]. It is not derived from, and should not be conflated with, Kleiber's interspecific 0.75 [2]; the Kleiber relation is used only as a consistency check. Only the exponent belongs to the cited source: the coefficient 98 and the entire multiplier model are this framework's own maintenance construct, anchored so that a 20 kg reference dog at M = 1.5 sizes to 1,000 kcal/day. We report an external triangulation of the multiplier envelope against three independent clinical references, quoting the clinical band rather than a favourable point within it, and marking the rows the product declines to serve. The paper then sets out the property that makes a single fixed-composition correction viable across a 3–110 kg range. The correction scales at BW^0.667, matched to the energy exponent, so delivery expressed as a percentage of requirement drifts by only BW^0.027 — approximately ±5% across a 37-fold weight range, and ±1.5 percentage points within the reference band. We show what other exponents would have cost, record two alternative scaling schemes that were examined and rejected, and explain the consequence for sedentary and ageing animals: because the correction is dosed by weight class rather than by energy, an animal eating 20% less receives 100% of its correction, and micronutrient density per calorie rises rather than falls.