Allergies in Dogs
Posted by admin on March 8th, 2009Yesterday I blogged about dogs with itchy skin today I want to turn my attention to dog food allergies.
When humans get allergies they quite often show up as a rash or a sneeze, with a dog they quite often show up as itchiness, or sometimes an ear infection. And when the allergy is food related then you may well notice your dog scratching himself constantly
If you suspect that your dog has an allergy of any sort we strongly recommend that you take it to your vet immediately, don’t have the poor animal suffer. That said, however, dog allergies rarely get solved with medicine, so if we want to avoid our four legged friends suffering it is best to focus in on prevention. For this tactic to work then providing the right type of food is essential. Around 10 percent of all allergies in dogs are caused by a reaction to food groups and the allergy can occur at any time in a dog’s life, not just when it is a pup.
A word of warning: don’t confuse a food allergy with food intolerance, both are quite seperate. Food intolerance is where the dogs finds it hard to digest certain foods and this can cause the dog to develop diarrhoea or vomiting.
If your dog has an allergy then the first step is to try an elimination diet. This really is a great tool though it will require that you work at it, basically what you will be doing is switching food your dog is used to to something completely different. As most sources of pet food are made up of beef, chicken, corn and wheat, it helps to switch to a food that your dog hasn’t eaten yet, such as lamb and rice, venison and potato or rabbit and rice. Keep you dog on these foods for about twelve weeks, so there is no chance of other foods been in its system and then re-introduce the foods you had eliminated on a one by one basis. Say one new food every two weeks, when the dog reacts you’ve found the guilty party. Just drop that food from the dogs diet. When you are carrying out this task leave strict instructions that your dog is to get no tibits during the trial period. No exception
Do you treat your dog like one of the family, do you feed him from the table? Well in moderation there is nothing wrong with that – I do it myself. However, be aware that dogs are not always equipped to eat the food we love so much and even common foods like cheese, beef sausages and tuna may cause an allergic reaction. So what I normally do is have a few dog treats sitting on the table and Dempsey is none the wiser.