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Tips For Identifying What Food Your Dog Is Allergic To

4 January 2017 by Victor James

If your dog is showing signs of having an allergic reaction to something that he or she has eaten, such as red and watery eyes, a rash on his or her body, excessive scratching of his or her body, vomiting, or diarrhea, you likely want the issue to resolve. However, you might not know exactly what your dog has eaten that would cause him or her to suffer from this allergic reaction. Your first option is to put your dog on expensive allergy medications for the rest of his or her life, which you likely do not want to do. Your second option is to identify the food that your dog is allergic to and avoid feeding that food to him or her. Here are some tips.

1. Change Up Your Dog's Food

The first thing that you need to do is change up your dog's food. Find a food that contains no potential allergens and start feeding it to your dog. This food will be slightly more expensive than regular dog food and your dog will likely not find it as tasty, so you will want to go back to regular food as quickly as possible. If you feed your dog the food that contains no potential allergens and his or her symptoms clear up, then you know that the dog food was the issue. If the allergy issues do not clear up, stop feeding any other food to your dog, such as table scraps or food that is dropped on the floor. 

2. Start Introducing Ingredients

Once you have the allergen narrowed down to what your dog was eating previously, start slowly introducing the foods back into your dog's diet, one at a time. Go through the ingredient list of the food that you were feeding your dog or the foods that your dog was picking up off the floor and start reintroducing the ingredients slowly. This will allow you to check to see, on each addition to your dog's diet, if he or she starts suffering from an allergic reaction. Once your dog has a reaction, remove that food from your dog's diet again and go back to slowly introducing foods. Once you've gone through all of the foods that your dog potentially eats and have identified which ones cause reactions, you can find dog food that is only composed of ingredients that do not cause reactions.

For more information, talk to a pet supply store such as Mid Cape Pet and Seed Supply, Inc. They will be able to help you find food that does not have any potential allergens in it. 

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