Doggy Diets & Allergies
Did you know it’s not just us humans who experience allergies when it comes to food? Dogs can do!
How will you know if your dog has an allergy to food?
- Itchy Skin
- Digestive Disturbances – vomiting and or diarrhea
- Mild symptoms could be hyperactivity, weight loss, lake of energy
How will I know what is causing the reaction – what are some ingredients to watch for?
The most common ingredients are as follows (but not limited too)
- Dairy
- Beef
- Lamb
- Chicken
- Eggs
- Soy
- Gluten (from wheat)
Each time a pet eats food containing these substances, the antibodies react with the antigens and symptoms occur.
They are not the only ingredients your pet might be allergic too – virtually any food ingredient can produce an allergy. Proteins are the most common cause but other substances and additives can also be responsible.
The best and most accurate method of diagnosing food allergy is to feed your pet a hypoallergenic diet for eight to twelve weeks as a food trial called an elimination trial and see how they go.
Here is a story about a 2 year old Toy Poodle Bridee that had allergies, and how Julies’ experience helped them get back on track
Last week we were called out to see Bridee, a 2 year old toy poodle.
She had been waking her humans many times a night, to be taken out to the toilet. This of course was causing the humans great sleep deprivation.
Bridee was also a very fussy eater and highly allergic to many things, especially chicken.
The humans had been advised to feed her a turkey-based dry food. We talked about the possibility of converting her to a more natural raw diet which could help with her skin irritations and scratching. We had discussed during the visit that even some of the top shelf dry dog foods have hidden protein fillers in them. Such proteins include chicken meal and pea protein.
When Bridee’s humans read their dry food packet it told them that the turkey flavoured food had chicken fat and chicken flavouring in it.
They had been filling their dog up on the very allergen that she needed to avoid! A
fter our visit they immediately stopped the turkey dry food and started trying to tempt her with the raw natural food.
Bridee is a fussy eater so has not eaten a lot in the last week BUT she has not eaten the turkey dry food and has not scratched for most of the last week.
She has also slept through the night twice! We now believe it was the allergic scratching that was waking her up, keeping her restless and causing her to disturb her humans’ sleep.
It’s this very phenomenon of cheap protein fillers (I call them “sneaky proteins”) that have led the more reputable companies to produce foods containing “single source proteins”.
This journey has been a real eye-opener and one that leads me to say, “Check all the ingredients listed on the bag before you start feeding it to your dog, especially if he/she has allergies!”
If you have questions about what foods we recommend get in touch! We would love to chat to you about your doggies diet