Caring for a dog with food allergies

Your dog is scratching like crazy and shaking his head nonstop. Your vet has told you it could be a food allergy. What does that mean? To find out, we spoke to Susan Wynne, an internationally recognized pet care expert.

Question: How common are food allergies in dogs?

Answer: Ten percent of all allergies in dogs are food allergies. Dogs can also suffer from food intolerances, which are different from food allergies.

Question: What are the signs of a food allergy?

Answer: Anything from chronic ear infections, gastrointestinal problems, and chronic diarrhea to chronic flatulence, paw licking, or an itchy rear end. Less common symptoms include seizures, asthma, and chronic sinusitis/rhinitis.

Question: What is the most common food allergy trigger for my dog?

Answer: This is a genetic problem and the allergic reaction is caused by triggers that the dog is sensitive to. The most common allergens are beef, dairy, wheat, eggs, chicken, lamb, soy, pork, rabbit and fish. Most dogs are usually allergic to more than one food.

Question: What causes this type of allergy to develop?

Answer: It is a multifactorial condition, but usually a genetic predisposition is required for allergies to develop. In addition, the environment can also influence the process.

There is a lot of research going on to find out what might cause the immune system of young puppies and kittens to express this particular trait. Animals' immune systems are going through a developmental process during the first few weeks of life. Young animals that have been treated with antibiotics may be potentially predisposed to developing problems later because antibiotics change the internal environment of the gut, which is the largest immune organ in the body. This may be a predisposing factor, but it takes subsequent exposure to an allergen to trigger the allergy.

Question: Are certain dog breeds more likely to develop food allergies?

Answer: It depends a lot on who you are talking about. There are also variations depending on the country or part of the country. You can talk to breeders in your area. If the breeder of your breed of dog is knowledgeable about allergies in their pets, you can assume that the breed often suffers from food allergies. Statistically, retrievers, German Shepherds, Dachshunds, Cocker Spaniels, and Cornish Rex are the breeds that most often suffer from allergies.

Question: How can I tell if my dog has a food allergy or if something else is causing the problem?

Answer: There is only one way to accurately diagnose a food allergy, and that is an elimination diet and challenge. So all you have to do is take away everything the dog eats and give him or her a food that has never been given before. With all the exotic diets available these days, this can be challenging. Sometimes people have to look for alligator and yak. Once the dog is feeling better, the old foods are slowly reintroduced, starting with the ones that were thought to be causing the problem. If the dog has a reaction, which usually takes a few days to a few weeks, we can say that the dog has a food allergy.

There are special tests to detect other problems. For example, you can take a sample of ear discharge to see if there is a problem there, or do skin tests to detect environmental allergies. A blood test is not a reliable test for any allergy.

Question: Will changing my dog's diet cause food allergies?

Answer: If your dog is sensitive to something in the diet, an allergic reaction may develop. However, there is no way to know if your dog is sensitive to any ingredient in the food.

Question: Can my dog develop a food allergy to something he has been eating for years without any problems? And will this continue to happen?

Answer: This happens quite often in dogs with food allergies. They have to be sensitized; they have to be exposed to the allergen for a certain amount of time. So usually during the initial period of eating the food, dogs don't react very strongly, but a dog that has been eating the food for years can suddenly have an allergic reaction to it.

If the elimination diet improves the dog's clinical symptoms and the owner can find two or three diets that the dog tolerates well, it is recommended to alternate them every 2-3 months. The idea is to keep the dog stable for months or years so that you can perform allergen challenge tests and determine what your dog is actually allergic to. If you are lucky, over time you can return to a more normal diet and stop the expensive exotic diets.

If a food allergy occurs at a fairly young age, it sometimes goes away on its own.

Question: How can I treat my dog who has food allergies?

Answer: You can try to treat the symptoms, but if you have a disease caused by something you put in your mouth every day, the best treatment is to stop eating that food. You can also use herbs, which of course help, but not as well as avoiding what is causing the problem.

Question: Is it better to cook my dog's food instead of buying it? What about raw food, would that help?

Answer: The positive aspect of preparing your dog's food is that you can know exactly what is in the food you are preparing and you can control it. The negative aspect is that it is quite a labor-intensive process and most people do not know how to do it properly. They do not add nutritional supplements to the food, do not follow the instructions and end up feeding their dog or cat an unbalanced diet.

There is nothing magical about a raw food diet (eating uncooked foods). Some dogs do very well on this diet, and some do not. The protein structure may be different from that found in cooked or processed foods, and for some dogs this may make a difference. But it is not so common that I recommend that everyone try a raw food diet for their dog.

Question: Is there anything I can do to prevent my puppy from developing food allergies?

Answer: No one will tell you that you can prevent food allergies from developing if your puppy is predisposed. If you provide your puppy with variety in his diet so that a natural rotation of food occurs, you will be able to maintain a healthy gut.

People can add probiotics to the diet of small puppies and kittens. However, the need to use antibiotics in growing animals is very questionable. This can disrupt the balance in the intestines and increase the likelihood of developing allergies in the future. Therefore, when caring for puppies, it is recommended to add probiotics to the diet until the age of six months or up to a year, maintain a varied diet and do not give them antibiotics.

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