What Is Your Dog Allergic To?

[Ptolomy]

Welcome to my world Crusader. Have to say Mandy Burrows is brilliant - can email her any time and she will respond within 24 hours.

The next problem will be your dog not tollerating the injections as they increase in strength and intervals. I have to inject my dog every 3rd day and all she can tollerate is 0.1ml.

Just for the record my dog was 2 in October and has had 2 x C3 injections. One at 8 weeks and one at 16 weeks.

[crusader]

To be honest, Frankie is actually really good itchy wise, she just sems to lick her feet a fair bit and every now and then will open up a pad which is a pain as they take so long to heal. She does not have hot spots or chronic itching so even tho she is very allergic she is still a happy wee pooch. She had her 1st 0.1ml injection this morning along with a zytec and appeared ok - we will see what happens as we get further down the program I guess.

C3 at 8 weeks, C5 at 14 weeks and pro heart at 14 weeks (I think).

Putting her on an elim diet of Roo and ZD 6 months ago has helped a heck of a lot and I swim her every day in the river which seams to help as well.

Frankie is lucky she got us for owners (DINKS) .........

Mandy is just awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lab_Rat]

My ridgie girl is on a diet of RC Exclusive Proteins dry food. The proteins are somehow derived from vegetables. She has a suspected animal protein allergy, which results in diarrhea and vomiting almost constantly. Since being on this food now for 7 weeks she has not vomited and solid poos!!! She is also an itchy dog, but i suspect that is a seasonal, pollen type thing. Antihistamines seem to control this ok.

This week I have introduced lamb, to join a few innocuous veges, pumpkin and carrots in her diet. She loves carrots and has them instead of bones. After a couple of weeks on the lamb i will introduce another animal protein, to join the lamb and see how she responds. I'm kinda thinking she will react badly to roo and chicken. Just a hunch form what she was raised on.

Our Kelpie on the other hand, seems to able to eat anything, anytime. Doesn't have any itchies, bald spots, or any other signs of intolerance or allergy! Lets just hope it stays that way.

I often think about the whole food intolerance/allergy thing and wonder if it has come about from generations of dogs being fed manufactured food?

I have just bought Dr Clare Middles new book, titled Real Food for Dogs and Cats. Dr Ian Billinghurst has written the forward, with the preface written by Dr Rosemary Hood. Haven t read much of it yet, but what I have read makes alot of sense. I am hoping to have our two on a complete unprocessed diet sometime this year, and it will be interesting to see just how well the ridgie does on it.

It seems to create alot of work having an allergic dog, from trying to find the cause to then trying to remove the cause from our dogs environment, if at all possible. I find it encouraging to see that a more vets out there are acknowledging the use of holistic treatment together with "western" vet medicine. I have never been comfortable with the use of drugs to simply treat or mask the symptoms in my animals, but rather want to seek out the cause and possibly remove it before it has any affect.

I know that sometimes there is no other way.

Perhaps we should start a thread dedicated solely to allergic dogs, so we can provide support and help for each other. I know that sometimes i would like to chat about whatevers going on with my girl, but really don't want to start yet another thread!

Does anyone else think this would be a useful thing?

RG

PS, I do hope everyones hounds are doing ok. peigirl, crusader and ptolomy, is WA the allergy state or what?

[zayda_asher]

It was all to much for Rafael's system and I only got up to the 2nd injection on the weakest strength vile before I had to stop.

I've been meaning to drop you a pm and see how you guys have been going... sounds like you've worked out a good routine, which is fab!

Asher has just started having massive reactions to his immunotherapy after being on it for about two years and we've had to discontinue... so far so good cross fingers. So its worth being aware that they don't always react to it straight away too... Zayda also reacted to her's after about 2-2.5 yrs. However, she was on injections and we moved her to oral as a trial and that has worked for her because she fell apart without her immunotherapy... so lets hope this continues to work for her. Asher was already being trialed on oral therapy when he reacted so we had no where to go for him, so lets hope he continues to do well without it!

The other thing I am exploring at the moment is weather he is allergic to march flies. He was bitten by one and the bites have gone funny... they may just have gotten irritated from him itching them etc. But he is allergic to deer flies so I've got to chat to Sharon and see do some research to see if they are related or anything... Its a possibility...

[zayda_asher]

The other thing I am exploring at the moment is weather he is allergic to march flies. He was bitten by one and the bites have gone funny... they may just have gotten irritated from him itching them etc. But he is allergic to deer flies so I've got to chat to Sharon and see do some research to see if they are related or anything... Its a possibility...

Ah, well I just did a bit of a search and March (horse) flies and deer flies are the same family: Tabanidae. So I'd say I'm on the mark with him being allergic to the March flies too... well off to have a chat with Sharon I go!! lol

Edited December 20, 2007 by zayda_asher