# Allergic to Poultry, Lamb, Oat, Barley, Flax, Pork, tea....Food Recommendation?



## YGBMB (Aug 25, 2011)

he's been constantly itchy ever since we got him from the shelter, so we did the allergy test...and he's allergic to these things...it's either we find a suitable dog food ( The vet says I can order specific food for him....would it be really expensive?)or he's going to get some shots...

We just bought Nature's Recipe Grain Free Salmon food today, it's like the only thing we find that has the least amount of the stuff listed. (it's got poultry fat and Chicken Digest. don't know if they will cause allergy??). But after research I found there is Menadione Sodium BiSulfite in it, which is supposedly bad for dogs?...So I might have to go to petsmart tomorrow again.

any recommendations would be appreciated


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## Sarayu14 (Apr 26, 2010)

Where do you live (Canada or the States)? You can try Orijen or Acana they are more expensive but they are all natural and don't have any of the digests or by product meals that other kibbles have. You could also jump to a raw diet and try straight chicken (a lot of the allergies that you find in shelter dogs is because of the food and the by products in the food not the real protein.) http://www.orijen.ca, http://www.championpetfoods.com/acana/ these two sites could give you some ideas on what to feed.


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## BeyondBlessed (Jan 25, 2011)

I'd give the fish based grain-free foods a shot. You may have to shop around, but PetSmart should have Castor and Pollux grain-free and poultry-free. 
http://www.castorpolluxpet.com/product/natural-ultramix-grain-free-poultry-free-adult-dog-food

You've also got Orijen 6 Fish, Acana Pacifica, and probably a version of TOTW that fits your requirements. I've never tried TOTW, but lots of people love it, it just seems to be sold at different types of stores that I don't venture into very often.


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## YGBMB (Aug 25, 2011)

I live in the states, I don't think I saw them in the pet stores here.
...If a dog food uses no by product meals and digest would it be a better choice?
I just don't have any experience with giving a raw diet.

I really need to solve this problem it has been driving me crazy for months seeing him suffer


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## YGBMB (Aug 25, 2011)

BeyondBlessed said:


> I'd give the fish based grain-free foods a shot. You may have to shop around, but PetSmart should have Castor and Pollux grain-free and poultry-free.
> http://www.castorpolluxpet.com/product/natural-ultramix-grain-free-poultry-free-adult-dog-food
> 
> You've also got Orijen 6 Fish, Acana Pacifica, and probably a version of TOTW that fits your requirements. I've never tried TOTW, but lots of people love it, it just seems to be sold at different types of stores that I don't venture into very often.


I've been hearing about TOTW for many times, how come they are not in the pet stores?...Might try getting that online if the grain free food don't work


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## katielou (Apr 29, 2010)

YGBMB said:


> I've been hearing about TOTW for many times, how come they are not in the pet stores?...Might try getting that online if the grain free food don't work


Look on their website to locate a store they are in the good pet food stores.


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## YGBMB (Aug 25, 2011)

katielou said:


> Look on their website to locate a store they are in the good pet food stores.


Thanks!  I just found some stores...wasn't expecting they have them here


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## kafkabeetle (Dec 4, 2009)

YGBMB said:


> Thanks!  I just found some stores...wasn't expecting they have them here


It's also available at most Tractor Supply Co. locations. You can probably get it there cheaper than at a chain pet store.


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## BeyondBlessed (Jan 25, 2011)

YGBMB said:


> I live in the states, I don't think I saw them in the pet stores here.
> ...If a dog food uses no by product meals and digest would it be a better choice?
> I just don't have any experience with giving a raw diet.
> 
> I really need to solve this problem it has been driving me crazy for months seeing him suffer


Orijen and Acana are fairly common, but they're in different types of pet stores you may not have noticed. I live in a pretty small city and there are a couple of places that sell them and I didn't know either one of them existed for awhile after I got my dog. Look for the small "natural" pet food stores and places like that.


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## hast (Aug 17, 2011)

I'd try Orijen or Acana I know that Orijen doesn't have chicken fat in their Orijen 6 fish


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## Sarayu14 (Apr 26, 2010)

A lot of the Orijen and Acana do have Alfalfa though.


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## StellaLucyDesi (Jun 19, 2008)

I would definitely give TOTW Pacific Stream a try. I checked it out and it doesn't seem to have any of the negative ingredients in it that you want to avoid. Tractor Supply is where I would buy it here....it's cheapest there, I believe.


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## InkedMarie (Mar 11, 2009)

Take a look at the new limited ingredient diets bt Natures Variety. One of them is turkey which has none of those ingredients.


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## Mac'N'Roe (Feb 15, 2008)

InkedMarie said:


> Take a look at the new limited ingredient diets bt Natures Variety. One of them is turkey which has none of those ingredients.


isn't turkey a poultry


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## Mac'N'Roe (Feb 15, 2008)

YGBMB said:


> so we did the allergy test...and he's allergic to these things...


how much was the allergy test, if you don't mind me asking? my dog mac is allergic to grains and poultry (determined by an elimination diet) but i think there is more out there and wonder if i should do the test to make sure.


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## InkedMarie (Mar 11, 2009)

Mac'N'Roe said:


> isn't turkey a poultry


ok, you got me LOL. Yes it is; it would depend on the dog. Boone can't have chicken but he does fine with turkey.


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## acover4422 (Oct 24, 2011)

Hi YGBMB,

I'd be interested to know whether you have any problems with Nature's Recipe. Back in the summer we wound up paying $900 over the course of a month in vet visits for Baloo. He had explosive diarrohea and vomiting and they ran every test under the sun. We tried fasting him to see if the D&V would go away, but it didn't, and the vet recommended we keep feeding him as normal while they ran more tests. We were buying Nature's Recipe from a PetSmart 20 minutes away from us, because our local WalMart doesn't carry it. Late one night B-dog ran out of food and was really hungry, so we went to WalMart and picked up the smallest bag of food we could find, since we were only going to use it for one night. Not only did he LOVE his new food, all of his problems cleared up. $900 in vet bills... ...and all we needed to do was change his food! We were furious.

One of the things that our vet suggested was to put him on a home-cooked diet, using food he hadn't been exposed to before (although they did suggest veal and venison, to which I think I replied "do we look like WE can afford to eat veal and venison?"). What you can try is getting a meat that he's not allergic to (an organ meat, maybe?) and boiling it up with some plain rice.

Something else that might make a difference is the AFCO statements on dog food. Our vet told us that there are two different AFCO statements that mean completely different things. All dog food carries an AFCO statement, otherwise it couldn't be sold. But there's one statement that says something like "meets AFCO regulations", and there's another that says: "Animal feeding tests using AFCO procedures sustantiate that Brand Name Food provides complete and balanced nutrition for all life stages". Look carefully for the wording, because it's very similar. Anyone can make a dog food according to AFCO regulations, stick whatever they want in it, and as long as it meets their regulations it could be bad for dogs but it can still legally sell. Look for a food that says it underwent animal feeding tests. Nature's Recipe was held up in (our) PetSmart as one of the best foods you could buy, because it had few fillers in it, but it made Baloo sick. Cheap-and-cheerful Beneful doesn't give him any problems.

Take a look at the foods that you've tried and see if they have the 'tested' statement. If your dog is allergic to something then your dog is allergic to something, but it might not necessarily be the allergy that's making him itch but something that's in the food that shouldn't be. If the foods you tried didn't have the 'tested' statement, I would suggest you try a high-quality food with the statement, regardless of the ingredients. If you still have problems, _then _try to find a food without all of those ingredients.

I just want to make it clean I'm not trying to start some scare here and imply that any dog food without that statement is _poisoned _ (*gasp!*) or anything, or that one food is better than another. I'm sure loads of dog owners have no problems with Nature's Recipe and I'm not trying to say you should avoid it, just that you should give your dog whatever is right for him/her, even if that happens to be one of the cheaper/lower-quality foods.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

The AAFCO test is very limited and not worth looking for. It consists of a limited number of dogs eating only that food for only 6 months. The food passes if the dogs don't lose more than 15% their body weight over the course of the trial and their health exams are normal and that is it. I would want a trial that lasts for several generations of dogs, more like the Pottenger cat trial. I am not saying that study proves one way or another that raw is best, just that this study means more than a 6 month study!
AAFCO trial. http://www.auntjeni.com/AAFCO_Feeding_Trials.pdf
Pottenger study http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Pottenger,_Jr.


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## acover4422 (Oct 24, 2011)

Oh wow! We officially need to change vets! Our vet swore by the AAFCO testing statement, and told us that whether a food costs $5 or $500, if it doesn't have the statement it's not reliable.


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## ks75852 (Aug 17, 2011)

Hey Mac, I just got my dog tested. I did the Greer Allergy Panel (in which they draw blood and test it against different allergens instead of injecting the dog). It cost about $300. The immunotherapy vials run a little over $100 for 3 vials which is a 3 month supply that builds up in strength to the maintenance phase. I'm tracking my dog, Jack's, progress on this over at this thread. I'm a little behind, but I hope to update tonight. He is allergic to basically everything, and like YGBMB's dog, itched from the first day I brought him home from the shelter. Inherited a crummy immune system from his parents.






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