Our dog battles allergies...and I've been trying to deny they are food related...mostly because they seem to have been worse in spring and fall and are more mild now but I've learned from a friend (who also has a pet with food allergies and this is what her vet told her) that her frequent yeast infections in her ears could also be a food allergy symptom. We already feed her a high quality grain free food - Fromm Surf & Turf. It has 5 stars on Dog Food Advisor so that's why I gravitated to it over the the other Fromm varieties which all seem to be 4 stars.
Why I'm starting to think it must be food related rather than seasonal -
It's winter. It's been cold enough consistently enough in Georgia that we aren't experiencing any new growth anywhere, most everything has gone dormant for the winter or is in the process of going dormant.
She's had countless yeast infections this year. At first I thought they were related to our lake trips, baths, and other dogs chewing on her ears when they play...but we haven't had a bath or a swim in the lake in months and she has infections in both ears out of nowhere.
She's still licking her paws...although not as much as she was in the spring or fall. In the fall she licked one paw so much she licked all the hair off and we finally had to put her on medication to help. We had her on meds for nearly two months before they ran out and we tried to see what would happen now that it's colder and less allergens are out in the air.
So anyway, I'm really frustrated. I feel like we're giving her a top dog food brand, it's grain free and I understand grain is usually the culprit with food allergies so now I don't know what to do. Does anyone else still battle allergies with their dog while they were on a grain free diet and did switching food brands help? If so, what were on and what food did you switch to? Is wet food better than dry? She's a pretty high energy dog and we go for runs three times a week in addition to our other playtime activities (soccer and Frisbee) and walks so I'm not suppperr worried I guess about her getting overweight. She's young and highly active, not a couch potato.
Re: Dog Food Choices?
(Although I CAN say, even though all the ladies here love cheese, do NOT let your dog get ahold of cheese.... Raider is having diarrhea everywhere.)
We have an Old English Bulldog that my fiance brought to the relationship. They are prone to skin conditions anyway (if anybody is thinking about getting an OEB - do NOT! They have a million health issues). He had him on a decent quality, bulldog specific food when we met, and he had a ton of skin issues, yeast infections, ear infections, licking his paws, itching everywhere, rash in the crotch, etc. I immediately started trying foods. Evo Herring & Salmon is the only food we've found that helps. The problem is that while grain does cause a lot of food allergies, your dog could be allergic to any of the other ingredients. Some do well on one type of protein, but not another, so sometimes even just switching the main protein within the same brand of food can be helpful. We tried Evo for him because a) my dogs had been eating it for years and have always done really well on it and b) Evo has the least number of ingredients of any of the foods we found.
Last year, Evo had a voluntary recall and you couldn't find it anywhere for about 4 months. Our poor bulldog went half crazy because no matter what we fed him (Fromms included), his skin issues flared up. Put him back on Evo as soon as we could get it again, and his skin issues almost disappeared overnight.
He does have skin flare ups, and he is currently having one. We were just at the vet last week about it. This time of year, it can be household allergens because you're turning on your heat, kicking molds and mildew and dust into the air. Our vet prescribed a low dose of anti-histamine to help him get through it. You can also try Benadryl. They can get 1 mg per 1 pound of body weight, up to 3 times per day. http://benadrylfordogs.info/benadryl-dosage-for-dogs/
Also, we use this to help give instant relief to the worst areas: http://synergylabs.com/product/richards-organics-new-incredible-skin-spray-12-oz-3/
Good luck! And also I hope you are enjoying the weather. I'm originally from Atlanta, but now live in the Great Lakes region. I envy you right now
Our dog also suffered from "seasonal: allegies. They showed a lot of improvement when we switched to Kirkland (from Costco) brand food. So we decided his allergies were more food than seasonal. He does well on the adult and senior flavors, but the weight control aggrevates his allergies. We still have no idea what thing in the food he is allergic to, but I don't care so long as there is something we know is okay for him.
Currently, he's eating Costco food- the Kirkland Signature line. He loves it and it seems to be agreeing with him.
One more thought- are you sure that she's had multiple ear infections and not just one that doesn't heal completely? Maury was supposedly cured of one right before we adopted him but ended up with an ugly infection 2 months later. The vet told us that people frequently can't tell the difference between the infection being cured and the dog no longer being bothered by it.
My older dog can't eat chicken, but it's more of a noxious gas thing than skin allergies.
My dog who passed away had anal gland issues for years until I got him on Wellness Senior Mix.
My younger dog also has anal gland issues, but she's not a senior, so I have her on Wellness Simple Salmon I believe, but they haven't gone away like they did with my other dog, although we finally got rid of the infection that she battled for months!
I think most "grain free" foods still include fillers, especially potato, which is a nightshade just like tomato and a common allergen, so maybe try a high quality food with just rice instead?
FWIW, those giant 40 pound bags are only $20-30, and if she isn't allergic, you'll save over the long run. You might also see if Costco wold let you return the opened bag.
You can clean her ear with a q-tip. Dogs have an "L" shaped ear canal, so you don't have to worry about hurting her ear. You can also buy a drying creme to put in the ear, it drys to a powder and sucks all the trapped moisture out. It's very inexpensive, and works great for killing ear infections.
Hug your pup for me!
we have a picky dog and he gets Fresh Pet Select, it comes in a big 6 pound log in a refrigerated case in the dog food aisle. Supposedly he refuses to eat dry food (it's FI's dog) and this is the only stuff he eats. It's expensive which is annoying but it could be worth a shot if the dry stuff seems to be causing allergy issues.
The dog is a beagle and has to have his ears cleaned out a lot or he keeps pawing at them. Has had medicines and stuff but regular cleaning seems to help.
The Wellness Lamb & Barley (& Rice) formula is what I think I had my younger dog on before we went with the fish simple diet. My other dog gets California Natural Lamb & Rice Low Fat because of the chicken issue I mentioned, but that wouldn't be ideal for an active dog.
I'm just starting the process of trying to find a (hopefully cheaper) food that will work for both of them, so I just bought a bag of Pro Pac Ultimates. Fingers crossed! It's such a tricky game!
They go through food super fast though, so I don't worry TOO much about buying the biggest bag!
Glad I can help. We have worked very hard on trying to isolate the cause and reduce his issues. We still don't know what causes it, we just know what he responds well to. Oh also, forgot to mention. We give him fish oil, per the vet's recommendation (he's about 50 pounds & gets 4000 mg a day of the human stuff) and also a supplement called "Missing Link" that is for joints and coat.
As far as the breed specific versus mutt health, I think you're referring to "hybrid vigor", which is a myth. If you have a dog with joint issues and a dog with heart issues and breed them together, from a genetic standpoint you can get a puppy with joint issues, a puppy with heart issues, a puppy with both, or a puppy with neither... The only way to avoid breed related issues is to do research on breed specific issues, and then find breeders that do health testing on their breeding animals to avoid breeding those specific issues. For example, the rare breed that I have can have eye problems, thyroid problems, hip issues or a very rare liver disease that only effects this breed. There are genetic tests for all of these diseases, plus x-ray exams for hips. All testing is put into a public database that any Joe Schmoe can access on the internet, so there's actually zero reason to buy a purebred dog that has genetic issues in it's pedigree if the breeder is ethical. When you get a mutt or a dog from rescue, it's always a crapshoot (not that I am at all indicating that anybody's mutt or rescue dog is anything less than the perfect animal, because let's face it, whatever animal is currently living in our home is the perfect animal
We personally got a lab puppy about 5 months ago and we've tried him on 3 different foods now but I think the one we just introduced may be the winner. The shelter was giving him Pedigree which seemed to be okay but I'm a crazy pet mom and looked at Dogfoodadvisor.com and decided that we'd put him on blue buffalo as soon as we got him home because it was highly rated and I'd seen lots of commercials. OMG after a month and half H and I were ready to invest in gas masks. We expected some issues immediately after transition but when the gas continued unabated H and I started to research other options. I also came across literature online that indicated labs do tend to have problems with chicken based foods and the BB for puppies is a chicken and brown rice formula. So we switched him to 4health lamb and Rice puppy (Tractor Supply Label produced by Blue buffalo). Pup's gas issues went away (thankfully) but his coat/skin got very rough and dry. At first I chalked it up to him not being a soft fuzzy puppy anymore and the fact that the weather was changing. But when he started getting lazy about eating (as the assistant in the pet food store said "you have a LAB puppy that isn't interested in FOOD? Does he have a pulse?" I went back to Dogfoodadvisor.com and came up with Earthborn Holistic Great Plains (bison based and enough protein for growing puppy). Our boy is now happily awaiting meal times again and in one short week his coat is already getting soft again and he isn't biting/scratching himself like he was on the 4health. The best thing about Earthborn is that they have 4 or 5 different protein formulas so once he hits 11 months if he starts losing interest in the bison I can buy one of their other formulas to rotate his protein sources. Plus if you go to their website and register they send you a $3 coupon good towards any 5lb or larger bag of food every month!
Good luck I hope your little girl gets better soon!
And people up here don't understand that without salt and plow trucks, the cities would shut down with an inch of ice, too! Nobody can drive on ice!! So don't think of Snowpocalypse as embarrassing.... it was inevitable when you only have winter storms every few years.
My dog currently has ear infections in both ears!
As far as food goes, it seems like you have some good suggestions already. Current dog doesn't have allergy issues, but our old lab did, and I think we fed him one of the Blue Buffalo foods. We had a very bad experience with Wellness brand, FWIW. It's important to remember that a lot of those types of food (all natural/organic) is preservative free, which means it has a short shelf life. Definitely keep it in an airtight container.
Also, I'm not familiar with the food brand you mentioned, but I know when we were doing elimination diets with the lab, we found that a lot of "grain free" brands still had corn and/or eggs, which can also be culprits. Just something to keep in mind. If I had unlimited time and resources, I would love to feed my dog just homemade food!
Talk to the vet about it too and see what they say. If you don't like your vet, I can give you the name of mine; he's awesome!!
Also, @lapeanut1018 I know you said you don't clean his ears, but I would talk to your vet about getting some Epi-Otic cleanser. We used it for our lab, and we'll be using it more on our Presa once his current infection clears (he's on no-clean drops right now, so we have to wait).
I have two Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix dogs. One can eat ANYTHING with no problems. The other dog is an extremely picky eater and has stomach issues (major diarrhea) with a lot of foods. DH used to feel him whatever he got cheap at the store, combined with a lot of table scraps. The dog avoided his food and had stomach issues whenever he ate it. So, I went on the search for a better quality food that both dogs are happy & healthy with.
I wanted something grain-free, or at least something with a meat as the main ingredient. We discovered that our dog had a big problem with any of the higher protein dog foods. They were on the EVO (Turkey & Chicken Flavor) food for a couple years and they did really good on that one and both liked it. When EVO had their recall a while back we switched to Natural Balance L.I.D. (Limited Ingredient Diet) Potato & Duck Flavor and they have been on that successfully since that time. Since we had already gotten them accustomed to it, we decided not to switch back to EVO after the recall ended. But, we've had good luck with both of those.
And whenever he did start having stomach problems, per recommended by our vet, we pulled the dog food and put him on a grilled chicken and white rice diet for a few days. We would cook up enough to last a few days or a week at a time, then just heat it up a little before giving it to him. In a day or two he was always back to normal. Chicken & Rice is good at calming a sensitive stomach and kind of resetting their system. It may also be a good test for a week or two to see if it helps your dogs allergies, since it is a safe & clean food choice without all the additives. If he does better, then you know it's caused by the food.
Edited: because others responded better and you're familiar with the brand already.
When I was researching dog food I read an interesting article that basically suggested the amount of money a brand puts into advertizing negatively correlates with the quality of food. (i.e. brands that advertize a lot like Purina are worse for your dog than noname brands with real meat). Interesting thought.