What dog food is your dog allergic to?

Does it seem to get sick when you feed one type of dog food and not another? Have you read the contents of your dog food bag – most of them have 30 plus ingredients, and sometimes might not include all that you get in the bag.

Did you know that meat by products can include some ghastly off cuts including beaks, feet and diseased material ? It shouldn’t but when you buy dog food you only by about 30% meat and that can be 75% by product rather than any kind of quality muscle meat.

What causes a food to be a Hypoallergenic Dog Food

These are bags of grain that have one of the three

• Limited ingredient diets
• Novel ingredient diets
• Prescription or veterinary diets

A limited ingredient list is great to perhaps help you work out what is ok for your dog to eat.

Alternatively feed your dog a RAW diet and you can know EXACTLY what is in its food.

Novel ingredient: these are where the food swaps a common meat and grain that “MIGHT” be causing an issue for a rarer meat or grain that your dog probably hasnt had, so it has not had an immune response to (as yet). They often have roo or buffalo or salmon as the meat. Grains might be millet or some ancient grain.

Prescription or veterinary diets – essentially use the above ideas in a much more expensive bag of grain. They saw you coming.

What are thought to be the most common foods causing dog allergies in food?

MEAT	GRAINS
§  Beef §  Dairy §  Chicken §  Lamb §  Fish	§  Corn §  Wheat §  Soy §  Yeast

If you know anything about dog food, I would like you to laugh loudly now – go on its cathartic !

The reason I say this is that 99% of dog food on the market is a combination of one of those meats and one of those grains. THUS naturally 99% of dogs developing allergies will be from one of these ingredients.

BUT AGAIN remember that less than 5% of all dog allergies are caused by a food ingredient. Fleas, mites, contact allergies rate the other 95%

Also note there is a big difference between a dog allergy to food, and a food intolerance. The food intolerance (like lactose intolerance)  is a digestive problem rather than an immune response. An intolerance occurs when a dog’s digestive system is unable to digest a specific ingredient in the dog food.

DIFFERENCE IN SYMPTOMS of dog food allergy and intolerance

Dog Food allergy	Dog food intolerance
·         skin rash, hives, ·         itching, paw biting, ·         obsessive licking ·         nausea or vomiting (worst case).	·         gas, bloating ·         nausea / vomiting ·         diarrhea.

You will note that nausea and vomiting are on both lists, so you will need to do more investigations if you have this due to food.