How do you know ? Allergies ?

Our vet suspected food allergies. I came on here and made a post and someone was kind enough to point out the most common things dogs are allergic to. So I then searched for a dog food without those items.

It took a while to find a food that not only Rocky would like but that would be good for him. I have not taken him in for testing and the vet agrees that by keeping certain things out of his diet he is thriving.

Of course it doesnt mean they arent allergic to other things. We found out the hard way that Rocky is highly allergic to peanuts.

Originally Posted By: Gyggles1How do you know if your dog has allergies to like the food they eat ? I see a lot of GSD's do have allergies and I have often wondered how you would know, do you need to go in for testing ?

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After seeing the vet several times for itching/hot spots, my vet suggested doing environmental allergy testing (which came back positive for several environmental allergens). On the advice of my breeder, I decided to do a raw food elmination diet to see of any food allergies as well. Within three weeks of taking him off kibble and putting him just on chicken - less itching (and I could take him off antihistimines). So, I haven't tried to add anything back in (like wheat, corn, barley, etc) to actually see if he is allergic to those things - I just try to stay away from grains (except rice if we are doing a bland diet, and that seems to be ok for us) and we haven't had any problems since.

Originally Posted By: Gyggles1I know the only thing to look for is itching & gas but that is all I know. There's so many ingredients in a dog food I'd imagine it would be hard to rule it out by each ingredient. ??

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To rule out food allergies, you would have to do a home cooked or raw food elimination diet because it would be too hard with all of the idividual ingredients in kibble.