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06-26-2011, 12:51 PM | #1 |
Donating Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Berkeley, CA
Posts: 55
| Food Allergies? I got my Brooke Lynn at 8 weeks and she's now 7 months. Since the beginning of our life together, she has been itchy - all over. Sometimes it's worse than others. She came to us eating Eukanuba - not a food I'm fond of, but I wanted her to settle in, so we didn't change it for a while. After a few months, I changed her over to our regular diet here - a homemade mix of raw ground turkey, steel cut oats, carrots, green beans, spinach, blueberries, apples, bananas ... those are the usual ingredients and we make big batches and freeze it in quart bags. 3 of our 4 (including the pup) eat it. I bought her a Merrick kibble - unfortunately, Grammy's Pot Pie, which is chicken based. She doesn't eat a lot of it, but always has it in her pen between meals since she's a growing pup. I spoke to my groomer (aka dog guru) who suggested she was likely allergic to chicken. But we don't feed chicken - oh, except the kibble which she occasionally eats and those Dogswell chicken-wrapped-around-banana/apple/or sweet potato treats - she gets about four of those a day. Duh!! Chicken!! I do know better, but somehow this happened anyway. So I've tossed the Merrick, stopped giving her the chicken treats (picked up some duck chews and some other treats that are single protein so we can see what works and what doesn't). Meanwhile, she's seen my naturepath, who seems to indicate allergies to chicken and beef - and some intolerance to pretty much every meat/protein we tested her for. She's suggesting the turkey, fish, red meat are only okay 1 of 3 days. Arghhh!! I'm going to have Dr Dodds' group do allergy testing with her blood and see what comes up. Meanwhile, my pup is getting pickier and pickier and I'm a little worried. I've never had a finicky eater despite years of small dogs, including another yorkie, who learned to eat competitively pretty quickly at my house!! The itching has lessened with the absence of chicken, but it's still early to tell really. A couple of weeks. I want to wait 'til the chicken is out of her system before I replace the oats in our general mix with starchy veggies. Then I'll have to see what the blood tests say. What else am I missing??
__________________ Judith & Brooke Lynn (& poodles:Tazah & Minkee) I'm surrounded by poodles here!! RIP my angels: Bella, Butchie, Cassidy, Coaco, and Kirby ~ xxo |
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06-26-2011, 01:02 PM | #2 |
Donating Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Berkeley, CA
Posts: 55
| ... and I was bound to forget something ... calcium and balanced daily vitamin are also given. Thanks!
__________________ Judith & Brooke Lynn (& poodles:Tazah & Minkee) I'm surrounded by poodles here!! RIP my angels: Bella, Butchie, Cassidy, Coaco, and Kirby ~ xxo |
06-26-2011, 04:19 PM | #3 |
And Rylee Finnegan Donating Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Metro Detroit, MI
Posts: 17,928
| Food allergies are pretty uncommon in young pups. Environmental allergies (or another issue causing the itching) is much more likely. What is the vet saying? You can do an elimination diet (novel protein and carb) and give no treats or chews during that time (at least 60 days - 12 weeks). It needs to be balanced for a puppy. Blood testing is sometimes recommended for environmental allergies, but usually the skin testing seems to be preferred. Blood testing for food allergies is unreliable and a waste of money. If there truly is a food allergy in a pup, avoidance for life (not just avoidance a few days a week) is usually recommended.
__________________ Crystal, Ellie May (RIP), Rylee Finnegan, and Gracie Boo🐶 |
06-26-2011, 05:21 PM | #4 |
Donating Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Berkeley, CA
Posts: 55
| Thanks very much! Vet didn't recommend testing for the same reason you don't. I just read Dr Dodd's description of her new test, but it's for food additives primarily and the only protein source on there is beef, which she's never had. Her skin is good. Guess we'll keep her off the chicken and stick to turkey in the meanwhile and see where that's at. We have no lawn, so it's not grass or chemicals on grass. We use really mild and/or green house cleaning solutions. Not sure what else to think about it - but she really has been itchy all over noticeably since she came home.
__________________ Judith & Brooke Lynn (& poodles:Tazah & Minkee) I'm surrounded by poodles here!! RIP my angels: Bella, Butchie, Cassidy, Coaco, and Kirby ~ xxo |
06-26-2011, 05:32 PM | #5 |
And Rylee Finnegan Donating Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Metro Detroit, MI
Posts: 17,928
| Fleas? Mites? Since she has had turkey before, it isn't a true elimination diet, so you could end up wasting a lot of time if that isn't replaced with a novel protein. If the allergy doesn't totally clear with the chicken being eliminated, you'll have to do the whole thing over with turkey being eliminated. If you go to something totally new, then you'll only have to do it once (since it takes 2-3 months). Then you slowly add in the old protein sources to see when the itching starts.
__________________ Crystal, Ellie May (RIP), Rylee Finnegan, and Gracie Boo🐶 |
06-26-2011, 06:12 PM | #6 |
Donating Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Berkeley, CA
Posts: 55
| That's true. I'm assuming it's chicken. Problem is, I haven't had any luck changing her diet - she's been rather sick with the one attempt I made, and is just better today. I was thinking about salmon. I could make her food up with all the usual ingredients and replace the turkey with salmon. I would cook the salmon - not a fan of raw fish. She's such a sensitive thing. I'm glad she's 7 pounds and not 2 or 3. I think I'd have killed her by now. My older poodle has protein losing enteropathy so we're far too familiar with the novel protein concept. Thanks for connecting the dots for me.
__________________ Judith & Brooke Lynn (& poodles:Tazah & Minkee) I'm surrounded by poodles here!! RIP my angels: Bella, Butchie, Cassidy, Coaco, and Kirby ~ xxo |
06-26-2011, 06:13 PM | #7 |
Donating Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Berkeley, CA
Posts: 55
| Oh, and no fleas, no mites. We've checked her skin with the vet, and haven't had a flea around her in forever. I comb them all every day, so we'd figure it out very quickly if there was a flea.
__________________ Judith & Brooke Lynn (& poodles:Tazah & Minkee) I'm surrounded by poodles here!! RIP my angels: Bella, Butchie, Cassidy, Coaco, and Kirby ~ xxo |
06-27-2011, 07:50 AM | #8 | |
Furbutts = LOVE Donating Member Moderator | Quote:
I would agree w/ EllieMay to not to blood testing. I would recommend skin testing by far. I go to an excellent Vet Derm (published, peer-reiviewed papers, nat'l speaker at Derm congresses etc) - and they won't do blood testing at all at their clinics, no matter what. I see you are in CA - our derms have offices there too: Dermatology for Animals Also, good protocols for allergy dogs here: http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/die...tart-here.html
__________________ ~ A friend told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn. ~ °¨¨¨°ºOº°¨¨¨° Ann | Pfeiffer | Marcel Verdel Purcell | Wylie | Artie °¨¨¨°ºOº°¨¨¨° | |
06-27-2011, 10:51 PM | #9 |
Donating Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Berkeley, CA
Posts: 55
| Thank you! I am in CA, but the closest of those places is a couple of hours away. From what I've read, skin testing is for environmental allergies and not food allergies. Anyway, I'm going to try her on a different protein for 3-4 months and use freeze dried meat of the same type for training. She likes the freeze dried stuff she's had so far, and I need to be able to treat her for training, so maybe we're good. Poor baby has a scratch near her eye today from roughhousing with the poodles, so I asked her vet to make her a cone from an old x-ray. I've seen him do this before. Scissors, old xray - and a tiny, lightweight cone is born. Amazingly, she is doing okay with it. It should heal up in a couple of days, I'm hoping.
__________________ Judith & Brooke Lynn (& poodles:Tazah & Minkee) I'm surrounded by poodles here!! RIP my angels: Bella, Butchie, Cassidy, Coaco, and Kirby ~ xxo |
06-28-2011, 06:08 AM | #10 |
Furbutts = LOVE Donating Member Moderator | For food allergies, the best 'testing' is to do an elimination diet - using a very novel protein and carb source.
__________________ ~ A friend told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn. ~ °¨¨¨°ºOº°¨¨¨° Ann | Pfeiffer | Marcel Verdel Purcell | Wylie | Artie °¨¨¨°ºOº°¨¨¨° |
06-28-2011, 08:41 PM | #11 |
Donating Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Berkeley, CA
Posts: 55
| Thank you, Wylie's Mom. I've started her on a novel protein/carb diet as EllieMay described. We just have to hang out now and see if she stops itching. I've put it on my calendar for early October through early November to see what we think has changed or not. Thanks so much!!
__________________ Judith & Brooke Lynn (& poodles:Tazah & Minkee) I'm surrounded by poodles here!! RIP my angels: Bella, Butchie, Cassidy, Coaco, and Kirby ~ xxo |
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