puppy food allergies

[lori]

Hi, I am new to this group and am wondering if anyone has some suggestions for suitable food for my 5 month old puppy with food allergies. We just got results back on serum allergy testing to find that he is allergic to egg, beef, turkey, catfish, chicken, milk, wheat and corn. He was initially on Acana, but increasingly had scratching, butt biting, itchy skin bumps and diarrhea, which is why we did the testing.  My question is what food to give him now? I would like a high quality food, which is why we went with acana, but am now unsure what to switch to that he will not react with. The testing lab gave some recommendations based on limited ingredient dog foods with either venison or lamb and without the allergens including: Nutro, Natural Balance, Hills and Wellness. Wellness is the one I was considering but If anybody has any experience with this kind of limited diet for a puppy,or other thoughts or recommendations on food brands, I would appreciate it. I would really like to find quality food and treats that we will be able to stick with.

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

I'm sure Karen will have some good recommendations, but my Oscar is on Acana's Lamb and Okanagan Apple and it contains none of the offending foods you list.

http://www.acana.com/products/singles/lamb-okanagan-apple/

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I'm almost afraid to tell you this, but the serum tests for allergies, food allergies in particular, are just about worthless. They are notoriously inaccurate. Neither JD's dermatology specialist nor his internal medicine specialist will run them even if the client asks them to and is willing to pay for it, because they always give false positives and often false negatives as well.

The chances that your 5 months old puppy has any kind of food allergy at all are very slim. Only 10% of all allergy symptoms in dogs are caused by food, and that's adult dogs. In puppies, food allergies are even rarer, because it takes a year of eating any particular food, on average, for a dog to develop an allergy to it. It is extremely unlikely that your 5 month old dog has eaten corn or wheat at all (unless the breeder was giving him a really crappy food) and I'm not sure that any Acana formula contains catfish, either. (This is evidence of false positives in the serum test). There is no reliable test for food allergies, you have to do a 12 week elimination trial, and for inhalant (environmental or seasonal) allergies, you have to do a skin scratch test, which is normally not done on young puppies anyway. Regular vets are not equipped to do skin testing, you have to see a veterinary dermatologist for that. The best vets will refer you to one if they believe a dog has true allergies. 

Some of the brands that the testing lab gave you are not recommended, period, like Hill's and Nutro, due to the fact that they import their ingredients from China through third party food brokers. 

None of the foods we recommend contain wheat or corn, very few contain milk, and I don't think  there are any that contain catfish. it's also not very hard to avoid beef in most foods. So the task at hand, if you want to follow these questionable results anyway, is to find a food that doesn't contain chicken, turkey, or egg. That's fairly easy.

It's important to remember that even when a dog does have food allergies, they are allergic to specific ingredients and not to brand itself. There is no reason you have to stop feeding Acana, you can just switch formulas. I personally would look at Acana's Lamb & Okanagan Apple or their Duck with Bartlett Pear. Neither has any of the ingredients that your puppy tested positive for, and Champion Foods is about as high quality as it gets. 

You will also need to be sure that you are not giving him any treats that contain those ingredients, too. That would include most chews like bully sticks and rawhides (beef.) That part may be more difficult than finding a good food.

If the "allergy" symptoms continue after 12 weeks of not feeding those ingredients, I strongly recommend that you consult a veterinary dermatologist. Many of us went down this path of "food allergies" to no avail, and our dogs only got relief when they were finally accurately diagnosed by a specialist. Good luck.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

In the Wellness brand, you might also look at the Simple Solutions line, either the Lamb, Duck, or Salmon formulas. 

Also, you can try giving your puppy one 500 mg. evening primrose oil capsule each day. These are human supplements, and they have been shown in clinical studies to help with itchiness and inflammation of the skin. Many of us here give them, even those whose dogs don't have allergies or skin issues. The Omega fatty acids they contain are great for the skin and coat. 

[lori]

Thank you for your suggestions. I really appreciate your input and will look into the foods and primrose.

Regarding the food testing, do you have any feelings on the Hemopet saliva test for food sensitivity and intolerances? 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It has been shown in clinical studies to be inaccurate. The antibodies that indicate the presence of allergies, Immunoglobulin E or IgE, are not present in saliva. Again, there is simply no accurate way to test for the food allergies other than to do food elimination trials. How I wish there were, it would make life much easier for those of us whose dogs have reliably diagnosed allergies and other immune mediated diseases. Many, many owners of dogs with diagnosed eosinophilic (food responsive) inflammatory bowel disease have tried these blood and saliva tests, including Hemopet, and only wasted their money.