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Originally Posted by Dulce  Your dog should be fed twice a day. 1cup dry in the morning, and 1 cup dry in the evening. Labs are notorious for obesity, and that needs to be monitered closely. |
Depending on the food. On a lower quality food such as purina, pedigree, iams or "generic dog food" the dog will have to eat more to reach their daily requirements for protein, fat, fiber and vitimans/minerals.
If she's eating a higher quality food, then she'll still probably need more than one cup twice a day, but it will be closer to this amount (Varying inbetwen 2-3 cups a day, depending on activity level).
To give you an example my 5lb dog eats about 3/4 of a cup a day, and he's a lot smaller than HALF the size of your lab.
You have to make sure you're feeding enough food. If she's leaving a little bit, that's okay. that just means that she either doesn't like the food, or she isn't being active enough to be hungry.
Which I find really bad for a 5 month old lab to be inactive enough that she's not eating, and to be FAT - yes, labs can be prone to obesity (mostly because they're garbage cans and will eat almost anything, and they tend to be couch potato's at home!) It's your job to exercise your dog properly. 5 month old joints should not be carrying that extra weight.
At 5 months your dog is still growing. I don't reccommend switching to an adult food anytime other than (for a large breed) inbetween 6 and 9 months, however for an overweight dog, this is okay, as long as the protein is higher than 26% (most large breed puppy's are 28%) and the food is still balanced inregards to the calcium and phosphorus levels to insure strong bones.
For example - Nutro large breed puppy (the chicken and rice formula) has guidelines for a dog of her weight and age - they say to feed 4-5 cups a day (if she's in about the 50lb weight limit)
The dog food bag will have the directions on it. Feed by those general guidelines.
Some people find feeding three meals a day is easier for a lot of dogs. Free feeding is an option for some - but then you need to make sure you're taking the dog out to do their 'business' much more often, as generally a dog has to go about 15 minutes after they've eaten, which could be at any various times during the day - whcih causes some people and their pets more greif in the end.
How are her stools? Are they dry constipation-type stools (dark and dry, almost flakey)? Are they larger than they shoud be and very light in color, and almost 'wet' looking.
Some dogs do not do well on certain foods - and not always because of allergies or sensativities, some dogs just don't do well on certain foods, despite quality.
Help me out a little by answering the questions regarding the dogs stool, and let me know what type of dog food you are feeding. I'll be able to help a lot more from there on
One of the reason she didn't eat was because her nose was clogged up, thus she couldn't smell. When vet forced some food into her mouth, she kept asking for more food 
