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Originally Posted by bonbon  I've fed mine several protiens trying to find one without chicken that they could all eat and do well on. Should I be concerned if they only ate a protein for a short time? Since I have one with a chicken allergy, I don't want to assume others might develop in the future. How much exposure is too much in terms of future sensitivites? |
Not sure. I mean, in theory giving anything more than once could result in an issue and some dogs react the first time (like with vaccines). However, I'm not sure how common it would be. If a dog has eaten dog food with an ingredient as generic as "meat", they have likely already been exposed to beef, pork mutton and goat. You can go to a prescription diet with hydrolyzed protein (I know this isn't the way most people would want to go because of the ingredients) just for two or three months and then start adding common ingredients back in to find the allergen. Not all dogs do well on these rx foods though.
Of course if they are allergic too all of these things, then you do have to change to see if you can find something that they can tolerate. They also may need to live on hydrolyzed protein if you can't find another food for them. But how do you know it is the protein? How about grains or environmental allergies (far more common than food allergies)? Or if all your dogs have it, how about fleas, mites, etc.? Where are they scratching and what tests have been done?
There are lots of protein choices though, so hopefully you haven't used them all.