Frenchie with allergies

[Lizbiz89]

We adopted a French bulldog a year ago and she has terrible allergies. Chews feet, scratches ears and under armpits. We thought it was a grass allergy so kept her away from grass, however it has made little to no difference. We're now trying her on a fish only diet as we think it could be a food allergy. Has anyone else had these issues and if so can you let me know what has worked for you. We also give her antihistamines but they don't always work.

Have you visited a vet?
Our rescue (mongrel) chewed his feet a lot. Our vet gave him a course of anti itching injections, the idea being that if he still chewed his feet it was more of a psychological issue rather than physiological. We tried a few options alongside this for a few months, antihistamines, indoor socks, avoiding grass, grain free diet. Nothing helped so in the end the vet thought it was more likely an anxiety or boredom issue. He's an old fella and doesn't seem bored so we think he just gets very anxious.

@AdInfinitum12 thanks for the reply. We have taken her to vet but and have got all of the shampoos/lotions etc. They've also given her steroids occasionally but haven't done much. I think stress plays a part but we don't leave her much and she's a very happy dog. It's all a bit of a mind field really.

My dog has an allergy to chicken. All her issues stopped when we cut it from her diet. One word of caution is to read ingredients very carefully as I found many fish kibbles etc actually can have chicken oil in them.

Ask the vet for a full allergy screen.

Welcome to the world of French Bulldogs. My DS and DIL have one. She is a lovely dog but has cost them thousands in vet/medication fees. Has all you mentioned plus eyes that pop out. I'm very much against flat faced breeds but her temperament is so good I can't help but love her. They have tried everything but nothing works for long.

And yes she has had every test going.

my friend had Frenchie also had lots of allergies, changed diet to raw much better

Our boy is an English bulldog and we’ve just had him allergy tested and it’s mostly grass and trees he’s allergic to. We give a piriton morning and night. I’d recommend allergy testing so you can pinpoint what it is.

@Prinnny think we might go down this route if the fish diet doesn't work. Was it expensive? I'm assuming it's blood work as well?

Yeah it was a blood test think it was around £250. Our last dog had allergies too, but we managed that with diet only, but this time we thought we’d find out exactly what it was.

I've got an adopted Frenchie too and my vet bills are crazy. They're just not a healthy breed I don't think. Mine also has allergies so I feed him high quality food but the thing that made the biggest difference was to stop giving him tap water. He has filtered or bottled.

He's currently undergoing treatment for suspected luxating patella, which I'm hoping he'll respond well to physio but he's also got an appointment for an MRI as they're also prone to IVDD and the vet thinks he might have thar too. One piece of advice I'll give is to make sure you're well insured. Unfortunately, I'm only insured up to 2k per condition which is nowhere near enough. We're already over that just on tests and emergency appointments.

I would never have chosen a Frenchie but what started out as me temporarily offering him a home, due to covid lockdowns shortly after I took him in, he ended up staying months and we really bonded. I wouldn't be without him, but I do wish he was a different breed sometimes.

We have a different breed and when she came to us she had the same symptoms. Luckily the dry skin and chewing her feet stopped pretty quickly.

We were given a calming shampoo from the vet, told to feed one food only and we are strict about snacks and absolutely no human food. Luckily it all cleared up pretty quickly and now she's glossy instead of dry and itchy.

We have a different breed. Our dog is allergic to grass / pollen / leaves and gets so itchy she bleeds from gnawing herself. She takes an apoquel tablet each day which controls her allergy. We were also given the option of a steroid spray for her feet as alternative treatment but it was less effective. We are hoping to be able to give her one tablet every other day once winter kicks in as itching triggers are greatly reduced.

My DS and DIL have a Frenchie with skin allergies, scratches, chews her feet. She has half an antihistamine tablet every morning with her breakfast, has made the world of difference.

My boy was loosing hair on his ears, very itchy and chewing himself
I did the same as you I changed him to a white fish and potato based food which helped a bit but not much

Turns out after allergy testing he's allergic to most pollen like me 😂as well oats, blueberries and several other things we had been giving him
Cut these from his diet ASAP and he's a different dog!

You can tell if someone has given him a treat without asking like our builders as he often has a little flair up but otherwise its great

Highly recommended pushing your vet for allergy test

Blood allergy testing is ok for environmental allergens but it's not particularly reliable for food allergens.

The best way to test for food allergens is a strict exclusion diet in which you choose one carb and one protein the dog has never eaten before (eg quinoa and ostrich) and feed only that for about 8 weeks until all allergy symptoms have gone. Then introduce one ingredient for 4 weeks and see if they react. Then another. And so on.

That's a long term project so blood test for environmental allergens first (and hope that's it!). But be aware that you may need to run this diet for food ones if that doesn't get to the root of it.

I had a border Terrier with 13 allergies. You'll have to get allergy testing as you'll never work it out, mine was allergic to beef, chicken, Turkey, lamb, peas, rice, corn, soy, wheat, house dust mites and storage mites.

If it's something like pea or rice it's a nightmare, it's in most dog foods as it's a cheap protein.

Allergy testing was around £400, blood test and insurance paid. Once we eliminated everything and found a food (iberico pork by Platinum) he could have he was fine, but you have to be so careful!

Thanks everyone. I'm getting her spayed in the next couple of weeks so will ask the vet then about blood tests etc. Keeping her on this fish diet but she's still itching a lot. We took her to the park yesterday and it's gotten worse so I'm inclined to think it could be environmental as well. Hopefully get it sorted soon as I can bear to watch her chew herself anymore, it's awful.

Hi op I have just been to the new vet with my rescue itchy frenchie. I had previously had an intolerance test and full vet blood allergy testing. The intolerance test showed up basically everything under the sun was an issue. The vet allergy tests showed nothing in particular. The new vet said testing is not very useful as it often shows nothing. She has put him on apoquel once a day. This has stopped the itching. He is also on thornit powder in the ears once a week and I have to wash him atleast every couple of weeks in clorexyderm shampoo and put douxo s3 mousse on afterwards. This keeps it at bay. It is very common with this breed. Dogs who live in houses and eat commercial food are exposed to thousands of chemicals. The vet told me this is why it’s so hard to eliminate all the things that are causing it hence the medication to alleviate the symptoms. The vet said that allergies increase with age as the immune system get s less robust. My dog didn’t start a to itch until he was about 18 months old. I found changing up foods made no difference at all.

@Muminabun I think you may right re food. I've had her on a fish only diet for nearly week now and it's not made a blind bit of difference. I do think she has some food intolerances though as when my dad was staying with us he kept feeding her rubbish and her allergies flared up really badly. I'm getting her spayed at the end of this month so I will speak to the vet then as we made need to start medicated her more which I really didn't want to do. The medicine you've been prescribed sounds expensive but if we have to go down that road then we'll have to. I think like you said most seem to be allergic to everything so it's about just managing and preventing those flare ups.

Food allergies cause an immediate or almost immediate reaction. Food intolerences are slower burn and reactions build over time.

If you haven't noticed immediate reactions after eating then it's more likely to be an intolerance and most intolerences are often (but not always) protein-based. You cannot medicate for food intolerances. Apoquel is used, primarily, for environmental allergies.

So, it may be that a fish based diet will help but 1 week is far too short a time to see any real difference if it was a food intolerance causing it. 4-6 weeks minimum. Food intolerances are about playing the long game.

As a way to prove/disprove the theory you can chose the novel protein/carb approach above or can get hypoallergenic foods that have hydrolysed proteins in them. These proteins have been broken down so that they no longer cause the same reation. These are veterinary based diets, not just 'normal' pet food that is sometimes labelled as hypoallergenic.

Whilst you may not want to use these diets indefinately, they can be very useful to rule in/out intolerences.

Eg. PRO PLAN Veterinary Diets Canine HA Hypoallergenic Dry Dog Food as a kibble based main food. Maybe coupled with Royal Canin Dog snack Educ Low Calorie treats.

Do not feed anything else but that for 6 weeks over which time you would ideally see an improvement.

If you do see an improvement you know you are dealing with a food intolerence. If you don't, you may look elsewhere for the cause.

@SirSniffsAlot thank you for the explanation. I will keep her on the fish only diet for the next 6 weeks and see if there's an improvement.

You need to put the dog on Apoquel,not cheap but stops the itching.
You can get a prescription from the vet and buy online.
Also bathe the dog every 4 weeks in hibiscrub and rub between it's toes.

@Rebelmcstreettuff do you know how much apoquel costs from the vets? Just so I have a rough estimate on how much I'll be spending.

I paid £160 for 100 tablets last time.
1 tablet given every day.