Food recommendation needed for Allergies & losing 5 lbs.

[TYoung]

Hello DK Uni-mind!  

I'm looking for some of your experienced wisdom :)  I took 2yr old. Hadley to vet yesterday and she is a 45lb Labradoodle.  She is 5 lbs overweight.  I feed her either Orjen fish or regional red OR Acana fish or heritage meats - 2/3 of a cup/twice a day. She appears tired of the fish formulas and not excited about eating overall for months.  With that, she has never been a gobbler of food.  Usually she also gets a teaspoon of a topper (under the kibble)...grassfed ground beef, carrots, peas, grilled salmon, green beans, one Fromm treat that I crush and sprinkle into her food.  Besides that she gets appx 8 Fromm treats or Fruitable treats a day. About 3 x a week she gets a Whimzees tooth brush.

She also has had ongoing allergies for about a year now causing her to lick her paws a lot.  Tried giving her Zyrtec but doesn't work.

Vet recommended: for allergies - I change her food away from red meats to things like Kangaroo, Rabbit and other exotic meats like that.  No red meats or poultry as she said they are often allergens (though I think she said duck would be fine). 

In addition to the food change, she suggested using the medicated shampoo Malaseb AND a trial 2- week course of Apoquel 16mg cut in half, so 8mg 2x a day.

For weight reduction- she said to cut out the Fromm treats completely and instead give her carrots, green peppers, lettuces, etc as treats. (Hadley likes veggies so that's ok with me.  She has been so-so on the Fromm treats lately anyway.)  And if she gets the protein rich toppers on occasion, that I should lessen the kibble for that meal and add green beans to meal with a few less kibble as well.

I would LOVE your input on what I should do for Hadley to help the allergies and lose her happy 5lbs.  She is a lazy one :)

Thanks SOOO much!

Attached are a few photos of pure sweetness :)

 

[TYoung]

OH...and the vet also suggested I add Omega Fish oil gel caps to her diet. 3/1200mg caps - 2X a day.  thanks'

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Okay, so we have two separate issues here, and of the two, the allergies are far more complex. I'll start there.

Food allergies are actually extremely rare in dogs. Most allergy symptoms are caused by environmental (also known as seasonal or inhalant allergies). Here is some information : 

Food allergies in dogs

General info on allergies in dogs and how to keep them comfortable

There's no harm in trying a food trial such as your vet suggested, but if Hadley is on Apoquel, there's no point, because the drug itself is going to clear up the allergy symptoms and you won't have any way of knowing if the food change makes any difference. 
Please be aware that Apoquel is a powerful immunosuppressant drug, and as such, can increase the risks of certain forms of cancer as well as possibly causing liver damage, like all immunosuppressant drugs. We always have to weigh benefits versus risks when using any medication, and Apoquel is certainly a wonderful option when other methods of treating allergies have not brought relief, but I would not use it until I had exhausted other possibilities. The Omega 3 fish oil supplements your vet recommend is one of those, antihistamines (NOT Benadryl) are another, and there are other things you can do as outlined in the link I provided above. If she is having allergy symptoms more than 4 months of the year, you really should see a veterinary dermatology specialist, and a good vet should be referring you under those circumstances. 

The problem with your vet's food advice is that if you are going to try a trial diet with a "novel" protein like rabbit, your dog cannot eat any other protein in any form, nothing but rabbit. For that reason, i would try to go with something that is more common and allows you to still give a protein treat occasionally, as I haven't seen any pure kangaroo or rabbit treats, lol. It's not so much that "red meats and poultry are allergens"; it's that IF (and it's a pretty big if) the dog does have a food allergy, it's going to be to a specific protein that she has been eating on a daily basis for months if not years. So if she hasn't been eating duck, for example, that would be as good as kangaroo as far as not causing an allergic reaction for her. For a dog who has been eating a diet containing duck, it wouldn't work. This is true of any animal protein. Allergies are very, very specific. A dog can be allergic to chicken but not turkey, or to beef but not lamb, or to salmon but not whitefish. So you need to look at the proteins in her current foods, including toppers and treats, and choose one that she has not been getting on a regular basis. If duck fits that criteria, great. Also consider venison. Zignature makes single protein LID formulas in duck, venison, and kangaroo, among other choices, so that might be a good choice for Hadley. 

Here's a link to their website: http://zignature.com/?page_id=333&lang=en

Not for the weight loss part, lol. The green bean diet is pretty painless, especially for a dog who likes veggies. You simple substitute a half cup of canned, no-sodium-added green beans for portion of kibble at each meal. How much kibble you eliminate depends on the calorie content of the food. For our purposes here, let's use Zignature's Duck formula as the example. The food contains 425 calories per cup. If you fed one quarter cup less (that's 106 calorie) and substituted a half cup of the green beans (20 calories), Hadley would be getting 86 fewer calories per meal, or 172 fewer calories per day if she eat twice a day. Yet she'd be getting a half cup more food per day by volume, which will help keep her feeling full. Warming the green beans makes them more appealing to most dogs. You may be tempted to use fresh or frozen beans, but trust me on this one, most dogs really do prefer the canned, especially is you use a little of the liquid, too. 

Hope this helps. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Boy I just read thru this and the typos are awful! I apologize, hopefully it's coherent enough to be understandable.

[DonMarie and Picco]

Hadley is adorable!  I love that first photo.  

Just my 2 cents:  Broccoli works well too if your dog likes it.  I think it's more filling than green beans and it worked for a food loving dog of mine!  It's hard to find holes in what Karen suggested but I'd wonder about the Whimzees tooth brush. Although it's all natural, it could be adding to a problem and isn't that necessary.  It's best to cut out as much as you can when you're trying to track down any type of allergen or sensitivity.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Broccoli is fine IF your dog likes it, but it does have more than twice the calories of an equal amount of green beans, so when weight loss is the goal, the beans are preferable. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I can't find a calorie count for the Whimzees, but 3 per week could add up. The ingredients are unlikely to contribute to any possible food allergies, but it might be better all the way around to just brush Hadley's teeth. 

[Mary ann & Lincoln]

Lincoln has to lose 5 lbs too. He is 72 lbs.  Of course during the winter he is not walked very far, so hopefully now that the weather is getting nicer he will get out more.  Our local dog park is a muddy mess too!

He has been a picky eater in the past but no grain issues etc.  He is on 1 cup 2x a day of  Fromm adult gold with 4-5 pieces of Stella & chewey meal toppers crumbled on top.    I tried the green beans and he picked out single one and put it on the floor!  LOL   they were the frozen kind heated up,  so maybe I will try the canned. 

[Amy and Annabelle]

Annabelle has mild allergies and scratched a lot. The vet told me to give her Fish Oil of at least 320 EPA daily, but mine is a 15lb mini. Or to give her Eicosaderm a pet grade Omega-3 in a pump bottle. I did the fish oil capsules for a week and then ordered the Eiscosaderm from Chewy. It is expensive and comes in 2 sizes. I was tired of having more fish oil on me than on her food. Since fish oil smells like dead fish, it is the last thing I want sprayed on me. She won't eat them whole. She said with Annabelle's allergies, just giving her fish formula dog food wasn't enough. 

[Amy and Annabelle]

I forgot to add that Hadley is adorable. I think Annabelle has that same bunny that she got in her Easter basket last year.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Omega 3 fatty acids, specifically DHA and EPA, can help with itching from allergies, even allergies that are not food related. JD's dermatologist originally suggested I give him fish oil supplements. Unfortunately, they gave him diarrhea, so she then told me to give him 500 mg. evening primrose oil capsules. Evening primrose oil is very high in an Omega 6 fatty acid called GLA, which is unlike other Omega 6 fatty acids; the body converts it to DGLA, which has anti-inflammatory properties. It is the anti-inflammatory properties in fish oil which help with the itching from allergies. The evening primrose oil works well for JD as well as for a number of other doodles here on DK who take it. Puritan's Pride sells 500 mg EPO softgels for a very reasonable price. https://www.puritan.com/womens-vitamins-023/evening-primrose-oil-50...

Evening primrose oil has no odor. It should not be used in dogs with seizure disorders, as, like other herbal supplements, it can lower the seizure threshold.