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I officially have a 12 month old Labrador puppy – which means Pepper’s no longer a puppy. At least not on paper.

In real life, she’s still doing zoomies in the living room and stealing her brother Wally’s favorite spot in his crate the second he gets up. But one year old is one year old, and that deserves a proper celebration.

Feist mix Wally and black Labrador Pepper on a leashed walk along a country path with green fields and mountain peaks in the background under a clear blue sky

This month’s update is a little different from the others. Yes, we’ll go through her new feeding numbers and I’ll walk you through a sample meal. But I also want to take a moment to look back at the full first year – the milestones, the adjustments, the vet visits, and everything in between.

At 12 months, Pepper weighed in at 27 kg (59.5 lb) and was eating 675 g (24 oz / 1.49 lb) of raw dog food per day.

Every puppy is different – see where yours lands.

This post is part 10 and the final update of my puppy raw feeding series, where I documented Pepper’s raw feeding journey month by month from 3 months old through her first year with me. If you missed the previous update, you can catch up here: Raw Feeding My 11 Month Old Labrador Puppy: More Travels & Diarrhea.

A quick heads-up: since this series started, I’ve updated my puppy percentages. Pepper’s 2.5% at 12 months falls right within the range I use today for a 12 month old Lab (about 2-3% of current body weight). You’ll find the updated numbers in my Labrador puppy feeding chart, or plug your own dog into my free raw dog food calculator.

Black Labrador Pepper sitting on the kitchen floor behind a plastic food storage container filled with raw dog food ingredients including mackerel, chicken, organ meat and butter, with the text "How I'm Raw Feeding My 12 Month Old Lab Pup(py)" and K9sOverCoffee.com

Raw Feeding Percentages For My 12 Month Old Labrador

Reaching the one-year mark also meant making one more meaningful adjustment to Pepper’s diet: dropping her feeding percentage from about 2.7% down to 2.5%.

That’s right within the adult dog maintenance range for a Lab her size (about 2.2-2.6% of ideal body weight), and it’s a milestone I’d been working toward since month 9, when I began gradually tapering her ratios closer to adult norms.

At 27 kg (59.5 lb) and 2.5%, her daily food amount came out to 675 g (24 oz) – a small drop from the 700 g (24.7 oz) she was eating at 11 months, but meaningful in terms of what it signals: she’s no longer being fed as a growing puppy.

(A quick note on the math: 675 g converts to 23.8 oz exactly, but I round up to 24 oz to keep things sane. Raw feeding involves enough weighing and calculating as it is – rounding to the nearest whole number won’t throw off your dog’s diet, and it’ll save your sanity.)

Her meal breakdown at 12 months looked like this:

55% muscle meat
5% heart
10% raw meaty bone
5% liver
5% other secreting organs
10% fish
10% plant matter

The biggest change from month 11 was another reduction in bone – from 12% down to 10%. That 10% raw meaty bone is the standard allowance for adult dogs, so we’ve officially landed where we need to be on that front. To compensate, muscle meat went up from 53% to 55%.

Everything else stayed the same. She continues to get approximately 0.44 g (0.015 oz) of kelp per day for iodine, and eggs two to three times a week.

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Sample Raw Dog Food Meal at 12 Months

This month’s sample meal is built around chicken wings as the raw meaty bone source – the same approach I used in her 10 month update, so you can see how the math shifts as her portions change.

Chicken wings come with roughly 55% meat and 45% bone. Since Pepper’s daily bone allowance at 12 months is 67.5 g (2.4 oz) – that’s 10% of her 675 g daily total – I worked backward to figure out how much wing she needed to hit that number.

67.5 g of bone / 0.45 = 150 g (5.3 oz) of chicken wings

Those 150 g of wings also brought along 82.5 g (2.9 oz) of attached meat, which I subtracted from her daily muscle meat allowance.

One thing I want to flag about this particular meal: the muscle meats I had on hand – chicken breast and a lean cut of beef – were both quite low in fat. Chicken breast sits at around 1% fat, and the beef I used came in at about 4%. Since the target fat percentage in Pepper’s raw dog food muscle meat is around 15%, I had a noticeable gap to fill. (You can check your own mix with my raw feeding fat calculator.)

Rather than swapping out the proteins I already had, I added 30 g (1 oz) of Irish butter from pastured cows to make up for the missing fat. I subtracted that same 30 g from her chicken breast portion to keep the overall meal weight on target.

This isn’t something you’d need to do regularly – if you’re using muscle meats that naturally hit around 15% fat, you can skip the butter entirely. But it’s a useful real-life example of how to troubleshoot a meal when the ingredients you have don’t quite add up to what you need.

Here’s what her full daily raw dog food allowance consisted of:

170 g (6 oz) chicken breast (muscle meat, adjusted down from 200 g to account for the butter)
95 g (3.4 oz) beef stew meat (muscle meat)
82.5 g (2.9 oz) meat from chicken wings (counted toward muscle meat, already part of the 150 g of wings below, not extra)
100 g (3.5 oz) lamb organ mix (liver, spleen, kidney, heart, lung)
150 g (5.3 oz) chicken wings (raw meaty bone)
67.5 g (2.4 oz) mackerel (fish)
67.5 g (2.4 oz) pureed plant matter
30 g (1 oz) Irish butter from pastured cows (added fat source)
0.44 g (0.015 oz) kelp (a kelp made for dogs, dosed per its label)

Stainless steel dog slow feeder bowl on a kitchen scale filled with raw dog food ingredients for a 12 month old Labrador - chicken wings, chicken breast, beef stew meat, mackerel, lamb organ mix, pureed plant matter, and cubed Irish butter

Pepper’s First Birthday Milestones

No vet visits this month – after Easter Sunday’s emergency trip at 11 months, I’ll happily take a quiet month!

The highlight of Pepper’s 12th month was finally learning to shake paw (video of Pepper shaking paws). I’d been trying to teach her for a while, but she just wasn’t getting it – or wasn’t particularly interested. Then one day, she did it.

I’d like to take the credit, but honestly? I think Wally deserves it. She’d been watching him do it for months, and I’m pretty sure she just figured it out by copying him. So thank you, Wally.

The other big moment this month was Pepper and Wally sharing a dog crate at work while each eating a filled KONG. That was a first – and they handled it beautifully. No growling, no attempt to steal each other’s treat, just two dogs minding their own business side by side.

Black Labrador Pepper and Feist mix Wally sharing a crate at work, each eating a filled KONG side by side without any food guarding

For a Labrador – a breed not exactly known for its impulse control around food – that’s a genuinely impressive moment, and one I wanted to document.

Looking Back: Pepper’s First Year

When Pepper arrived at 3 months old, she weighed 12 kg (26.5 lb) and was eating 1.14 kg (40.2 oz / 2.5 lb) of raw food a day at a feeding percentage of 9.5%. Nine months later, she weighs 27 kg (59.5 lb) and eats 675 g (23.8 oz) at 2.5%.

That’s a journey that went from four meals a day to two, from puppy growth ratios to adult maintenance feeding, and from tentative first bites of chicken necks to crunching through chicken wings like it’s nothing.

Here’s a quick look at how her diet evolved across the full first year:

Pepper’s Age	Pepper’s Weight	Feeding % / Daily Food Amount
3 months	26.5 lb / 12 kg	9.5 / 2.5 lb = 1.1 kg
4 months	33 lb / 15 kg	9 / 3 lb = 1.35 kg
5 months	39.7 lb / 18 kg	8 / 3.1 lb = 1.4 kg
6 months	47.8 lb / 21.7 kg	6 / 2.87 lb = 1.3 kg
7 months	51.5 lb / 23.4 kg	5.5 / 2.82 lb = 1.28 kg
8 months	54 lb / 24.5 kg	5 / 2.65 lb = 1.2 kg
9 months	56 lb / 25.5 kg	3.5 / 1.9 lb = 900 g
10 months	59 lb / 26.7 kg	3 / 1.76 lb = 800 g
11 months	57.3 lb / 26 kg	2.7 / 1.54 lb = 700 g
12 months	59.5 lb / 27 kg	2.5 / 1.5 lb = 675 g

Beyond the numbers, here’s what stood out across each month:

Month 3 – Calculating Her First Ratios: Pepper arrived, and we hit the ground running. Four meals a day, her first raw meaty bones (video of Pepper eating her first chicken neck), her first taste of whole prey, and kelp as her first supplement. The math was new and a little fiddly, but she took to raw feeding immediately.

Black Labrador puppy Pepper and Feist mix Wally looking up at a raw feeding prep tray with raw meaty bones including poultry heads and chicken necks and feet

Month 4 – Portion Adjustments: Her growth picked up speed, and so did her appetite. I adjusted her portions upward, introduced lamb ribs and duck necks, and survived her first night in a tent. She was already proving to be an adaptable, easygoing dog.

Month 5 – Feeding Raw At Home & On The Road: Two weeks in Southern France and Italy with a 5 month old Labrador puppy – and her last puppy tooth fell out somewhere along the way. I leaned on dehydrated raw dog food to keep things practical on the road, and she handled every new experience with curiosity.

Month 6 – Upgrading Her Stainless Steel Slow Feeder: Her feeding percentage dropped to 6%, officially moving her into a steadier rhythm. She graduated to a larger bowl – a practical change, but also a small sign of how much she’d grown.

Month 7 – Meals, Mischief & Milestones: The teenage Labrador phase arrived in full force. She transitioned to two meals a day, and I was reminded that a bored teenage Lab with unsupervised access to a room is a recipe for creative home renovation.

Month 8 – Growth, Meals & Holidays: Her growth slowed, her two-meal routine settled in, and she had her first holiday season. There was also a possible first mild heat cycle – a quiet reminder that she was growing up faster than I expected.

Month 9 – Less Bone, More Meat: A significant shift: I started tapering her bone percentage down and bumping muscle meat up, signaling the transition away from puppy growth ratios. Her height had mostly leveled out, and her structure was filling in nicely.

Month 10 – Lots of Firsts: Pepper ate her first whole prey duck, had her first confirmed heat cycle, and got her first at-home grooming trim. She was starting to feel less like a puppy and more like a young dog coming into her own.

Month 11 – More Travels & Diarrhea: Five nights on the Danish coast – Pepper’s first Scandinavian adventure – followed by a bad case of bloody diarrhea and an Easter Sunday emergency vet visit. A good reminder that raw feeding isn’t a magic shield, and that an 11 month old immune system is still a work in progress.

Month 12 – Happy Birthday, Pepper: Officially an adult dog. Feeding percentage dropped to 2.5%, bone percentage landed at the adult standard of 10%, and she learned to shake paw. Not bad for a year’s work.

What’s Next

Pepper’s first birthday is also the finish line for this puppy raw feeding series. From here on, she eats like an adult dog, and I’ll adjust her amounts the same way I do for Wally: based on her body condition and activity level.

If you’re raising your own Lab puppy, you’ll find every month at a glance, plus an updated feeding chart by age and weight, in my Labrador puppy raw feeding series.

Raw Feeding My 12 Month Old Labrador Puppy: Happy Birthday, Pepper!