Can anyone help with a dog with a possible food allergy?

[LaFleche]

How does this doggy toothbrush look, and, does he need toothpaste or would that just contribute to the possible food allergy?

Presumably.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Chewy was bought by Petco and is the dumps now ☹

They were!? I didn’t know that! that explains it haha cause I know when I first found them like 5-6 years ago they were amazing and so cheap and they’re not now. At least for dog and cat stuff. I actually find their small animal stuff and bird, fish, etc. is still pretty cheap I got a huge flight cage for my parakeets for only like $80 (it’s normally well over $100) but the price went up right after cause I was gonna buy a second one I find their customer service is still great at least but idk how recently they’ve been bought?

 

[Weeg]

Just so you know cooked bones, especially cooked chicken bones, are really not a good idea. They can easily splinter and get stuck in the throat or the intestines. If you want to feed bones, raw bones are best as they are far softer and more pliable. Cooked bones are dangerous for dogs.

WE mostly feed uncooked. If someone feeds him a cooked bone we take it away before he can really eat it. We let him lick cooked bones but no teat them.

 

[Weeg]

Yes, and exactly these tooth pastes contain lots of artificial flavours and stuff that can trigger allergies.

Maybe we will just rub some salmon skin form dinner not eh tooth brush so it tasted good. I don want to feed him a bunch of preservatives. Here is the link to a toothbrush I liked! https://www.amazon.com/Pet-Republiq...pY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1

 

[ShrekDawg]

WE mostly feed uncooked. If someone feeds him a cooked bone we take it away before he can really eat it. We let him lick cooked bones but no teat them.

That’s good at least! I wasn’t sure cause you said you feed him the leftover ones or I thought haha

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

We have a 5 year old yellow lab pup. He is such a good boy and loves running on trail rides with us and the horses, and chasing a stick. He has recently developed a limp, when he gets up in the morning, and after we run him on the trails sometimes. We took him to the vet and they told us he had tendonidouse. We kept him as chill as possible for 2 weeks, but nothing changed. We then noticed he had a hot spot on his shoulder, and he was continually chewing his paws.

We have done research, and are thinking a food allergy may be the cause of this. He also have and ear infection that is being difficult to get rid of. Apparently, paw chewing, hot spots, and ear infections are all signs of a food allergy. We want to figure out how to find his possible allergen without taking him to the vet to get a bunch of testing done. We are thinking of trying to find him a hypoallergenic or limited ingredient dog food and then eliminating and reintroducing ingredients to find his allergen. Does anyone know a food brand that we could use that isn't to pricey? We think his limp is because he is chewing his paws all night because of the itch, and then they hurt in the morning, and when he runs because he is chewing them so much. Any advice is appreciated, and if any of you have had this issue before and would like to offer your opinion please do. Thanks so much, Avery

have you tried a raw diet?

 

[FloorCandy]

Feeding raw meaty bones will help with this. Most people that feed raw account for the teeth and give them bones and/or necks to chew to clean them.

I did as well, but my dog didn’t chew the bones with his back molars, and he got an infection that ate into the bone. His front teeth were great, and the back ones didn’t look bad, but then the vet found it had made a cavity between the teeth. We went to get Christmas photos of my kids at the mall, we were gone 2 hours, and I came home to so much blood, I thought someone got shot and broke in to escape being caught (I was living in a building with a broken front gate in Brooklyn so that was more likely than what had actually happened). My bulldog had ruptured an infection that went dangerously close to a major vein or artery, and he had freaked out when it happened and the skin between the two broke and he was bleeding out through the tooth. He miraculously survived and the vet said we were lucky that it must have happened just before we got home. I’m 50/50 on whether I blame myself, I should have brushed his teeth, but the vet should have noticed this at his regular checkups, and just removed the tooth at the start. But the moral is, he had eaten raw through much of his life and did really well on it, but I couldn’t store raw food for 3 dogs in a city apartment. I applaud people who feed raw, it’s great and natural. Just brush their teeth. Compared to actually researching and preparing raw, toothbrushing is easy.

 

[clickchicks]

I'm just going to throw this out there, the book Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs by Lew Olson is a great "get me started" guide on raw feeding.

There are millions of opinions and resources on raw feeding across the web. Lots of good ones, lots of not so good ones, and lots of in between. It can be hard to get started sometimes, but I like this book. Having something physical in hand to reference is great for confidence, or at least it is for me. I've read a few books on the subject of balancing dog food (don't judge me) but this one is the most practical and straightforward. At least it was for me.

 

[Ebony Rose]

If you don't mind cooking for your dog for a couple of weeks, you can cook white rice with chicken and veggies for a couple of weeks and avoid dog food of all varieties during this time. This would tell you if the sensitivity issue is in the dog food or the environment. If after a two week trial the symptoms have not improved, then you will know that it is not the feed and is something in their environment.

 

[DobieLover]

And look up the list of 'grain free' diets that have been implicated in heart failure in some dogs, before deciding to use one of them.
Mary

That has recently been discounted.
This is just one article on the results of an actual study to analyze the supposed link:
https://bunnysbuddies.org/new-study-shows-no-link-between-grain-free-dog-foods-cardiomyopathy/

I fed a raw diet to my dogs for years but recently switched to Orijen, rotating between the 4 formulas, due to extreme lack of time to prepare the raw diet.
Only the cat remains on a raw diet as she will vomit any and all commercial food I give her. She usually does this on the counter or the furniture, thank you very much.