Pinpointing Food Allergies / How to become a detective !

In many cases, canine food allergies sort of creep up on the individual dog owner and that occasional scratching, inflamed, itchy skin, vomiting, diarrhea (or constipation), vomiting, gunky ears, sneezing and whatnot, become more intense and become a daily occurrence which needs prompt attention. If you bring your dog to your local animal hospital, your veterinarian will first rule out more common causes of these symptoms with a physical examination and laboratory tests. After determining that flea allergy dermatitis is not a cause, your veterinarian may diagnosis inhalant allergies and suggest additional pricey allergy testing.

A considerable number of devoted dog lovers will spend huge amounts on allergy testing, which may or may not determine food allergies as a contributing factor to the above mentioned symptoms. The next step in this quest will be to determine which foods are allergy triggers. Most food-allergic dogs are hypersensitive to only one or two ingredients (beef, dairy proteins, chicken, eggs, food preservatives, etc.) and your veterinarian will help you to try to pinpoint which of these foods might be causing problems. The most common way of dealing with food allergies is to do an elimination diet and use foods which contain protein and carbohydrates which your dog has not be exposed to previously. It is at this point that many dog owners need to make some soul searching decisions. Should they follow their veterinarian's advice and put their dog on a specialized type of kibble (which contains dozens of ingredients and food preservatives) or should they think out of the box and put their dog on a home cooked or a raw food diet ?

How should one approach this situation ? In my humble opinion (with five generations of allergic relatives), I can only suggest that you do research on the subject of allergies (there are huge numbers of sites on the subject and thousands of books, in addition) and read up on alternative methods before committing yourself to one narrow approach. All commercial kibble contains so many ingredients that it is almost impossible to pinpoint offending allergy triggers. If you want to quickly put an end to your dog's suffering, you need to do your own thing and switch your dog to a diet with a controlled number of foods.

According to studies on this subject, you need to offer an elimination diet for a period of up to 16 weeks and monitor your dog's response. Signs should abate if your dog is indeed food-allergic. In my own experiences, I have found that symptoms decrease within a much shorter time and you may also find this to hold true.  Please remember that there is no cure for food allergies and long-term avoidance is essential for keeping your dog free of his/her symptoms.  Unfortunately, some dogs become allergic to ingredients in the elimination diet and you should consider constantly rotating foods in order to prevent this from taking place. To complicate matters, a large percentage of dogs have both inhalant and food allergies and when this is the case, antihistamines may need to be given on a daily basis.  Please look in the archives section of the site for articles on the connection between certain foods and inhalant allergies.

You will need to become your own certified detective when dealing with canine allergies and a flexible, scientific approach is essential. Keep a calendar and list your dog's symptoms, pollen counts and daily diet and see if you can connect all of these factors. Some owners are able to do this on their own and others require the constant guidance of their family veterinarian to help them . You may also consider joining our Yahoo group on the subject to gain support and additional information from other dog owners in the same situation. Good luck !