Protein Allergy?

[JoeCalFuckingZaghe]

DDog apparently has a protein allergy. Vet advised we try a hypoallergenic food but gave no indication of timeline or follow up. He started the food about 4 months ago (it is a struggle to get him to eat it) but the issues he had been having (itching, furloss, scabby skin) have gone. But he hates the food. We’ve found a hypoallergenic “meat” but even after a while on that mixed in with the kibble he’s bored. He is absolutely insane when we cook meat in the house, so it’s obviously not a hunger thing.

After contacting our vets I’m trying to find a new vet as I asked if we could speak to someone about a follow up but their idea of that was “just leave him on the food if it’s helping.” (But we have a claim on the insurance I’m waiting to go through before swapping vets).

He’s losing weight slightly as he often leaves half a bowl of food. We can’t give him treats or anything atm as we’re sticking to the “diet” but until I can see a new vet does anyone have any advise of how to get him to eat?

Can he have fish? I’ve been advised he can have cheese treats but obviously he can’t live on that.

He is currently eating purina hypoallergenic mixed in with a little royal canin hypoallergenic wet food (maybe like 1/4 tin a day just to give him the taste of it)

Any advice would be great. Thanks

Is it just protein or a specific animal protein? Doesn't seem very precise. Is it chappie thats fish based? Don't know if its something they can have

Hi there - my old dog used to have a sensitivity to protein. The vet advised chappie for her and she tolerated that really well. It's probably not the best quality dog food you can get but it absolutely made a massive difference to my dog (literally overnight) and she loved it. It stinks - which is probably why she liked it - and I seem to remember it's quite fishy but it might be worth a try. Best to check with your vet first though.

We were advised by our vet that the hydrolysed dog foods should only be used as a kind of break/reset to get the dog back to health, then trials should be done of individual proteins to find out which ones they react to. He said often complete novel proteins work best, so for British born dogs, things like Buffalo or Kangaroo believe it or not.

Slightly different with my dog, as his digestive system was destroyed by strong medication, resulting in him not being able to tolerate any of the food we tried him on.

However he could eat white fish and salmon, so we used to steam that for him ourselves, either with quinoa (again veterinary recommendation) or rice.

Ultimately it was good old Chappie that he was able to tolerate. His pancreas was damaged as well, so he had to have low fat and he only started regaining weight once we tried him on Chappie. It has to be the Chappie Original though, the other flavours aren’t as well tolerated.

That said, Chappie does contain cereal, so if your dog is sensitive to gluten or cereal products, Chappie might not suit him.

My boy had grain allergy and he loved Wainwrights pouches, he hated the trays but liked pouches. Took a long time to find what he could eat though,

We were advised by our vet that the hydrolysed dog foods should only be used as a kind of break/reset to get the dog back to health, then trials should be done of individual proteins to find out which ones they react to.
This is really good to know (and what I assumed after reading online). Our vet is clearly rubbish. They've been great with our guinea pigs but absolutely rubbish with the pooch. Will be changing ASAP and will get back onto them as he's now refused his evening meal and only ate half of his morning food. Still eager around our food.

I would be tempted to try reintroducing different proteins (assuming the reaction he gets isn't serious of course!) to see if it's just one protein or all. We discovered Ddog has a beef protein allergy (which I think is the most common one) when we switched to a range that included beef whereas our previous one hadn't. She was continually getting ear infections which hadn't been a problem previously. We've simply cut out the beef variety and the ear problems have stopped (she says with fingers firmly crossed!)

@moosemama

We were advised by our vet that the hydrolysed dog foods should only be used as a kind of break/reset to get the dog back to health, then trials should be done of individual proteins to find out which ones they react to. He said often complete novel proteins work best, so for British born dogs, things like Buffalo or Kangaroo believe it or not.

Slightly different with my dog, as his digestive system was destroyed by strong medication, resulting in him not being able to tolerate any of the food we tried him on.

However he could eat white fish and salmon, so we used to steam that for him ourselves, either with quinoa (again veterinary recommendation) or rice.

Ultimately it was good old Chappie that he was able to tolerate. His pancreas was damaged as well, so he had to have low fat and he only started regaining weight once we tried him on Chappie. It has to be the Chappie Original though, the other flavours aren’t as well tolerated.

That said, Chappie does contain cereal, so if your dog is sensitive to gluten or cereal products, Chappie might not suit him.

An alternative view . My Lab is now 15 years old and has been on purina ha hydrolysed dog food or equivalent for 10 years. It is the only food he can tolerate due to severe allergies. I am usually a raw feeder and found it very hard that this is the only food he can eat. However it literally has been a life saver for him.

@PollyRoulson, I’m sure there are other dogs they can’t find a food they can tolerate for as well. I think what the vet was saying not to just accept that a dog won’t be able to tolerate anything and automatically leave them on hydrolysed food. It’s accepted protocol to do some sensitivity challenges once they are stabilised in the hope that an alternative can be found. I’m sure, you did the right thing for your dog. If it had been the only food my boy could tolerate I would have had him on it too.

I’ve always been very careful with my dogs’ diets as well. I was a raw feeder until we moved to this house, where I have no room to store the food and would have found it hard to leave my poorly lad on hydrolysed, but if we had followed the vets advice and still found that was all he could tolerate I would definitely have done it.

Unfortunately, I have known vets who will try to push the food they sell on to people without properly investigating the problem, so I would always want to be sure it was the right thing before making that decision.

I have a dog with intolerance. I was advised to try chappie first preferably the tinned then the purina if that didn't work. The chappie worked. It stinks. I was advised once he settled to try him on things to see what he can tolerate. I feed him wet chappie and use the dry chappie as treats.