Doggie Allergies?

[Starshine]

Spencer is a retriever mix and weighs about 100 lbs. I have had the allergy testing done on him and he is allergic to pork, rabbit, dust mites and a variety of trees, grasses, weeds and molds. He eats prescription allergy dog food which is about $80 for 25 lbs.

If your vet approves, it might be worth a try switching to the Honest Kitchen. I printed out the ingredients and let our vet look before we switched. I can't believe how much better our dog is now that he's off the prescription stuff. And no despite how it sounds I don't work for them or have stock in the place! I'm just continually amazed at the changes its made in our dog.

 

[marie1203]

My best friend's lab has horrible allergies. We have 3 dogs with allergies. Our pomeranian is allergic to something in food we think a protein source. Food allergy symptoms will be more itching his hears, fcae, etc. If you think he might have food allergies then the first thing you should do is give him grain-free food and change to a very unusual protein source like kangaroo.
From what you describe to me it sounds more like environmental allergies. Two of my dogs had this last year after a big fire near by. They will lick their paws and itch their bellies. We never knew what it was but it had to be something with the fire because they have not shown signs this year and as soon the fire stop they were fine. We gave them predisone when they were itchy and spray some medicated thing in their bellies and it keep them from itching.
On the other hand my friend that has a dog with severe allergies has done a bunch of things. Her dog was in allergy shots, but after two years weren't helping her. She is seeing a dermatologist right now and her dog seems to be doing better. She did got tested for allergies and they know what she is allergic to. And she is allergic to many many things. she has to vacuum 2 a day. She has to put any different flea stuff because she is extremely allergic to flea bites . She is in 2 different medications and she is doing better but not completely good.

 

[tuckerkeys]

Oh boy OP, ask a question like this & you get a TON of different answers! That's what su*ks SO bad about allergies in dogs b/c there are just SO many different causes!

Both of my dogs are on a grain free diet. Grain ( corn & wheat ) are the #1 ingredients in dog food dogs can be allergic to. I have found that a grain free dog food with a different protein, like salmon, works wonders with dogs but it can be pricey. There are a few sweet potato & salmon foods out there. Also bison as the protein which is also good.

One thing I religiously do with my dogs is add fish oil to their food at dinner. My adult golden gets 3 caps, and our new puppy swissy gets 1. It's just regular fish oil pills from the costco. It helps with their skin & coat. My new puppy came home with the worst doggie dandruff, and once switched over to her new food & fish oil pill it has stopped, and her coat is shiny & soft! The only downside to the fish oil pills are that their breath smells like fish! the pup also when she gets wet will smell a bit like fish, but I know it is working.

One of my older goldens would get spring & fall hot spots, along with red itchy paws. We'd have to give her benadryl in her food along with shots. I didn't know about the food issue back then ( 10 yrs ago) and didn't know abt. fish oil. Since I educated myself about allergies I've never had to go that route again - also the dog food industry is much better than it was 10 yrs ago & much much more choices.....Good luck!!

 

[Octoberbride03]

I'm glad to see so many people chiming in here. It does help to know that this is a quite common occurrence. I am taking all the suggestions gotten here and discussing with DH what we need to do.

I'll tell y'all that the front of the house is all hardwood already. When we have the money the other 3 rooms in that part of the house will be changed over as well, but that is a year or more down the road. We have started a routine of dust mopping every other day to see how that helps.

And Onlsow has a new routine of being carried into the house after a walk
This is so we can wipe down his paws per your suggestions before he gets any new irritants on the floor.

He sleeps with us on the bed and usually on top of the covers. We had been washing it every 2 weeks, Maybe we should switch to every week.

Going through the Jeffer's pet site and there will be a couple of shirts I'll order for him. The have reasonable prices in there so I'll get 2-3 of them.

His last bath was Monday at grooming so we have decided to bathe him weekly on Sundays now, so Sunday will be his next bath. Boy does he hate those baths

Was looking in Dr.s Smith catalog and thinking about ordering their itch-stop shampoo & conditioner. Have any of you tried this? The shampoo has lidocaine and hyrdrocortisone to help with the itching. Good direction to go in?

Dogie dermatologist and other suggestions are still on the table. His diet is already grain free and we have seen an improvement, but not a complete abatement, so we are thinking it is mostly environmental as well. No ear infections for our little guy since we've had him. He's got an anal sac infection now though. So if we try him on new drugs we'll likely wait until he finishes his course of amoxicillan/clav that's he on for the next 3 weeks. Would rather not mix anything.

Thank you all for sharing and suggesting

 

[Octoberbride03]

Just had a call from our vet about blood testing for Onslow. I actually asked about it before i started this thread, but they were researching information and didn't call me back until today. Still have to talk this over with Dh since he is walking Onslow today. Could be back in a minute or an hour from now

Now I know how much the testing costs and that there may be a food trial involved before we do the actual blood test. This is not the best time of year to get it done, but we had such a warm winter I don't think there is a good time this year.


So the saga continues

 

[Jrsy Boy]

Our clumber spaniel used to scratch himself raw and keep us awake at night with all of the scratching. My DW found an ad for this:

http://www.petpalsvitamins.com/products/scratchy_dog

...and figured it couldn't hurt to give it a try. It worked like a miracle to stop his itching and all of the fur he'd scratched off has since grown back in.