Pedigree dog treats or Iams food root cause of allergy??

[Chocogoingcuckoo]

Does anyone have experience of pedigree dog treats or Iams dry food causing allergies in dogs?

I had my cocker spaniel at the vets yesterday, she has swollen glands, temperature is 39.1, red inflamed ear, itchy butt and fusty red dry skin under her paws and between toes.

We only use non-bio so ruled this out. Vet reckons it must be something we are feeding her. He told us to stop feeding her Iams immediately as "no-one really knows what's in it".

The other trigger may be pedigree dog treats, I stopped giving her markies after a few days as they give her terrible wind! We give her dentastix daily and various other pedigree treats that were given as Christmas presents.

Any thoughts or experiences of this? Any recommendations of natural treats?

Thanks.

We tend to use bits of 'real' food cut up very small - chicken, sausage, carrots, apples, broccoli, occasionally cubes of cheese, dried fish plus his normal kibble (we use one which is just salmon and potato)

For longer lasting treats he has fish skin twists or sometimes a cow's ear (makes me heave but he thinks they're delish)

There could be additives in there that she is reacting to? How about giving small cubes of cheese for a treat? Or depending on how much time you have make some liver treats of your own.

Re the food. To see if it is her main food you could always put her on a bland homemade diet similar to what our vet recommended when our dog was recovering from serious leg ops and wasn't hungry at all. He had to eat because of giving him medication. I made up batches of boiled whole grain rice, turkey (sainsburys do really cheap turkey legs), carrot and apple. Or fish instead of turkey.

It's worth cutting out everything that isn't homemade to see if that helps her condition improve.

Pedigree isn't a very good brand and dtentasix tend to clean the front teeth and cling to the rear, It's also full of all sorts of rubbish.

We give cheese or chicken for treats and also carrots. We switched off Iams as soon as we got ours home (gradually of course) and now use Canagan.

The Iams is now in the bin and treats will be carrots, cheese or apple from now on. The vet suggested wainwright's so will try that for a couple of weeks.

Remember you should swap food gradually so they don't get upset stomachs.

She could be allergic to anything. Her symptoms are the same as my dogs', so we started on grain free food to see if that had any effect, but no joy.
We ended up testing for allergies and it appears that he is allergic to beef, lamb and rice, but also the pollen of a particular weed.
He still has problems even though we've eliminated those foods from his diet completely, and the vet said it could be something else environmental because they can't test for absolutely everything.
You do need to know what is in the food though before you know what you are looking for reactions to.

The plot thickens, she is now being tested for hypothyroidism and if that comes back clear it's scans/xrays to rule out anything more sinister. Although the change in diet has stopped the whiffy farts.