Allergies can be environmental or food allergies. Sometimes it is hard to figure out which is the case. In severe cases, they can be allergic to almost everything.
Finding the allergen can be of great help in treatment. I have seen severe allergies pretty much cleared up once the allergen was removed. For example a friend got a rescue Minpin that was severely allergic to corn. Once she was switched to a food without corn, she was fine. the original owner surrendered it because she couldn't be bothered with it anymore and unfortunately, her Vet was only treating the symptoms with pretty heavy duty drugs instead of investigating the cause.
A pup I sold now about 5 or 6 years old had a problem in winter. THe owners had some allergy tests done for the 5 most common allergens and found he was allergic to wool. Their comforter on their bed in winter is wool and of course that is where he slept so once they got rid of the comforter he has been fine ever since.
A pup with some sort of allergy problem cannot be predicted and can come from a line with no allergy problems.
In my opinion, I also think some of the problem could be the vaccination protocol of annual vacc's which is slowly changing. Challenging the immune system with vacc's every year I believe can compromise many things including contributing to more allergic reactions to other things.
Also, I am not sure if there aren't environmental influences with pollution levels etc as it seems a lot more people both adults and children are having a lot more allergy problems than the numbers of problems of 20 years ago. |