Trophy Pet Foods Help! What is my dog allergic to? It has long been thought that the most common dietary allergen is wheat. Whereas only around 5% of dogs have a true allergy to wheat. Other provocative ingredients can be beef, soya and dairy products which are present in many brands of dog foods and most treats. Sometimes they are shown on the ingredient listings as “derivatives of meat” or “meat and animal derivatives”. Therefore it is best to buy brands, such as Trophy Pet Foods which include only named ingredients. That way you know what you are feeding and can exclude a known allergen. Dogs can develop allergies to any ingredient and finding out what this is can be hard. Vets often favour a prescription diet of some sort that contains hydrolysed protein. Hydroysation breaks down the proteins into tiny fractions which the immune system may cope with a wee bit better. These diets can be useful in cases where food allergies are suspected, but the exact culprit can never be pinpointed. The problem being that allergy prone dogs can develop intolerances to any ingredient, hydrolysed or otherwise! Another massive disadvantage is the very high cost of these prescription diets. To further confound matters, food allergy testing is expensive, in most cases not covered under pet insurance and is unreliable. An exclusion food trial is often the best way forward. Something you can do at home over period of time and does not cost the earth. Ask your local Trophy nutritional advisor about the best way to go about this. Remember that treats are food too and these need to be looked at in terms of what ingredients are in them. If your dog is eating any of the ingredients most commonly associated with allergens eliminate these first. It’s a good place to start – wheat, dairy, soya, beef. Try our Trophy Premium or Holistic Range, which contain none of these ingredients and lots of key benefits for the allergy prone dog. Many food allergies manifest in skin issues and going to the loo issues. Look out for itchy feet, poor skin and coat condition, constant diarrhoea. Some will have skin and digestive issues, some may just have skin issues. However, as we learn more about what dogs can be allergic too, it is becoming increasing not a food problem. If you are already feeding a Hypo-Allergenic, wheat, beef & soya free Trophy Premium food, it is unlikely to be food related (it could be) but it may well be an Atopy problem and this can often be overlooked by vets, who generally like to go down the food route first and then sell you an expensive food. Atopy (adverse immune response to inhalant allergens) can show as almost identical skin symptoms to those of food allergies. And is much more common that a food allergy, so you need to rule these out should the modified diet fail to reap the desired results. Pollen, dust house mite, concrete dust, plug in air fresheners etc are all known allergens. Bear in mind that it can take 6-8 weeks for the body to eliminate residue from ingredients it has not liked. So it’s important to give a food trial a fair chance. Unless the symptoms get far worse on the new food! The intestinal tract may well have suffered a wee bit of damage so it important to make life as easy as you can from this point forward for the immune and digestion system – Trophy Premium Lite, Trophy Premium Hypoallergenic, Trophy Premium Holistic and Trophy Duck and Veg are all very suitable diets to try and in most cases will help.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 13:50:12 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015