Below we take a look at the different types of sensitivities that may be causing your pet's allergies, and explore the best dog food for allergies.
What’s causing my dog’s allergies?
Dogs can suffer from atopy allergies (pollen, mould, dust), contact allergies (grass, laundry detergent, bedding), flea allergies and asthma. Food allergies are also common.
Some dogs will sneeze and itch and have red, irritated eyes, while others will suffer from diarrhoea, vomiting, hair loss, raw skin, an upset tummy and ear infections.
Your vet can test for allergies, including environmental and food, but another effective way of figuring out the problem is a ‘limited ingredient diet’, which is something you can do at home.
What’s a ‘limited ingredient diet’?
If you suspect your dog’s allergy is a result of a food sensitivity, a limited ingredient diet will help to determine and eliminate reactions from common pet food ingredients such as corn, wheat, soy, and some animal proteins.
To follow the diet effectively, you need to stop feeding your dog any processed foods and only give them a single protein source for 4-6 weeks - ideally one they’ve never eaten before, known as a ‘novel protein’, like rabbit, pork, goat, kangaroo, crocodile, duck or venison.
If symptoms dramatically improve, you can slowly introduce the old diet again (one protein at a time) and monitor what happens.
What’s the best dog food for allergies?
ZIWI® Peak recipes contain only the ingredients your dog needs to thrive (fresh meat, organs, seafood and bone).
To ensure the protein is one they’ve never tried before, you could start with our venison recipe. With the ZIWI® Venison Shank you can even give them a treat with the same protein.
We caught up with Ashleigh Macpherson who has recently switched her parents’ dog, Hades, to a ZIWI diet to try and relieve some of his painful skin issues:
“My parents’ dog, Hades, has experienced flaky skin, hotspots, and general coat dullness his entire life. When his symptoms got to the point where his skin was raw and bleeding, the vet suspected it was related to a chicken allergy - so we decided to try the ZIWI lamb recipe.
My parents have been amazed at the transformation and are going to keep Hades on ZIWI Peak now that they see how happy he is.”
Sources:
https://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2011/09/15/hel...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408390591001117?scroll=to...
