Allergies can be frustrating to pin point, but your pet will be much more comfortable if you can figure it out. You can take your pet to the vet but they’re likely to make a best guess and prescribe you with unnecessary medication that simply hides the problem instead of fixing it. On the other hand, they may be able to provide some testing that will give you a better idea of what’s going on and point you in the right direction. I’m a firm believer in trying to figure out the problem myself before resorting to a vet. It takes trial and error but I know my pet best and would prefer to save money that would otherwise go to the vet.

Identifying If Your Pets Allergy Is Environmental or Dietary

First you’ll want to rule out other causes for your pets symptoms such as mites, unbalanced thyroid, fungal infection, etc. Then you can begin to try and breakdown what kind of allergy your dog has.

An Environmental allergy is going to be caused by something in your dogs environment. This can range from outdoor allergies like pollen or bad air quality, to indoor irritants like household cleaners, dust, or mold. To figure it out you’ll want to ask yourself these questions . . .

-Are symptoms seasonal?

-Do symptoms get worse after a walk?

-Did you start using a new chemical around the house?

-Do symptoms get better with Benadryl?

Dietary allergies are of coarse caused by something your dog eats or ate. They are not necessarily caused by a sudden food change and in some cases can take years to develop. Common dietary allergies include grains, chicken, eggs, dairy . . . but can be something unique as well. Keeneye is very allergic to salmon which is a unique protein that’s dogs with allergies would get generally get put on. He gets bad diarrhea and very itchy when he has it. Here you’ll want to ask yourself these questions . . .

-Did you recently switch your dogs foods or buy a new treat?

-Does your dog have vomiting or diarrhea?

-Is there no improvement when given Benadryl?

Similar Symptoms

Symptoms can be similar for both environmental and food allergies like itching, hair loss, skin/ear infections, and rashes.

Food specific allergy symptoms include skin problems on flanks, ribs, hips or knees. Vomiting, diarrhea, scabs or  hot spots, gastrointestinal issues.

Remedies

Traditional Medicine: Like I said at the beginning, a vet will likely prescribe medication like antihistamines, steroids, antibiotics . . . these can be helpful in the short term, but it’s best to continue working on the primary source of the problem to find a more permanent solution. Vets can also provide testing in which they prick shave and prick your dogs skin with a variety of common allergens to see what causes a reaction and figure out what it might be. However, this testing can be costly.

For Environmental Allergies: Depending on what your dogs allergic to, you can do things like change the filter in your heating/ac to eliminate dust & mold spores, use more natural cleaners like vinegar, wipe your dog after playing outside, bathe your dog more frequently (but not too frequently). A higher quality diet can also improve your dogs immune response to environmental allergens by providing it what it needs to properly filter and fight back.

For Food Allergies: It can be helpful to put your dog on a limited ingredient raw food diet either temporarily or permanently.  Be patient as it can take 2-3 months to see results though most of the time I think you should notice improvements rather quickly. If your dog seems okay with the limited ingredients food, you can gradually begin to add other ingredients to see if your dog has a reaction. Once the dog food is figured out, you can start moving on to treats and see if any of those are bothering your dog.

If you don’t have the time to make a raw food diet then there are limited ingredient kibbles out there, or commercial raw, that provide unique proteins that your dog will likely be able to consume like rabbit, duck, venison, etc. Though with kibble keep in mind that maybe your dog is allergic to a preservative that would be found in kibble foods.

First Hand Trial And Error Stories

Problem: Whenever Keeneye ate any food or treat that contained salmon, he’d get horrible diarrhea. And I noticed he’d be itchier on foods that had chicken.

Solution: I avoided foods and treats that contained salmon and chicken.

Problem: My mom’s long haired shepherd mix was always itchy and occasionally would develop hot spots.

Solution: She added 1-2 tsp coconut oil to each of his meals and the symptoms subsided.

Problem: My mom’s lab had seizures that got worse over time. They sometimes seemed to be triggered by unhealthy table scraps like chips.

Solution: Not sure if the seizures were allergy related, but slight tweeks to his diet lessened and all but removed his seizures. She upgraded him to a better quality kibble, and added things like coconut oil, magnesium powder, ect. to his food. I’ll have to get into more detail on a separate post.

Problem: Keeneye slowly broke out into little scabs all over his body. I tried to treat the scabs with coconut oil but it was a losing battle.

Solution: I resorted to going to the vet. First vet just prescribed me an ointment for the scabs. It took going to a second vet to identify that it was a skin infection. Though I disagree with antibiotics, a round of those cleared the scabs right up. When he got a skin infection a second time, I came to the conclusion that it was the shampoo I was using. Now I use a special shampoo, and he’s never gotten another skin infection.

Good luck with your own detective work!