Question:
I temporarily stopped the IVD prescription food and have had my dog on
Prairie raw food organic chicken until it ran out (2.5 days) and since
then, boiled a chicken purchased from supermarket marked no hormones, no
additives or preservatives. I've added nothing to it other than Solid
Gold Sealmeal and Virbac's Z-EFA, both of which she's been on since I
first got her Apr 28th. Since yesterday, her "normal" amount of scratching/gnawing on paws/tail
has increased substantially and has more of an urgency to it than the
prior week.
With that said, she's a severely allergic older dog and the doctor and I
are not clear yet if she even has a food allergy. She definitely has
inhalent allergies because of scratching ritual she always goes thru
immediately upon returning from walks (4 times a day).
So, if a dog has an allergy to a specific food, such as chicken, do the
symptoms show up within an hour? Several hours? Next day or days
later? I don't know if it's only now that the chicken is bothering her
or if it's an inhalent issue. (I just realized that it's a little
breezy today).
Answer:
Depending on how severe the allergy, as with humans, symptoms may start
almost as soon as the allergen is contacted. To figure out whether some treatment X caused an effect the definitive test
is a withdrawal design. Using this design, you present and later withdraw the
putative cause a number of times and see if the effect (scratching) changes
with introductions and withdrawals.
What complicates all this is that the effects of a food allergen
could last a long time, perhaps several weeks.
I had thought my dog was allergic to corn (starch) but later found
that the scratching covaried with his being bathed. I have
since reduced bathing frequency and use less doggy soap.
My dog continues to scratch but much less than before but but now it is
mostly confined to his paws. My vet thinks that this scratching is due
to something in the air. I look forward to the first frost which
will destroy pollen.
According to our Canine Dermatologist, a food allergy can come up within
hours to 3 days. I had to deal with this in one of our rescues. This is what I did.
All she was fed was raw chicken/carrots for weeks. NO SUPPLEMENTS.
Within a day she reacted to the checken so we switched to beef/carrots. Beef
is less of an allergen than chicken, according to the Canine dermatologist.
She tolerated the beef well. I started to add the supplements after that. I
used the Biologic vet supplements as they are, in my opinion, the best for
allergic dogs.
No problems with the supplements.
Then, I added Oatmeal. Porridge. MAJOR reaction to that. I stopped that and
waited for a week or so for things to settle down.
I added cooked organic brown rice. NO problems with that.
Once I figured out that Oatmeal was her main problem, I then got her off raw
and fed her Solid Gold Millenia, which has beef brown rice and fish. Now the
Dermatologist recommends only one protein in the diet but I took a leap of
faith and tried it and it worked.
Treats were only dried liver...no biscuit treats.
I took her off raw as the likelihood of finding an adopter willing to feed
raw was slim, so I had to get her onto kibble.
We had her for 6 months from Dec 2003 til June 4004. Today she is
incredibley healthy with the thickest softest black coat. And to
think...when I got her she was covered in scabs.
