Eight month old with suspected allergic reaction

[drivinmecrazy]

We have an eight month old Weimaraner pup who has never shown any reactions to anything.
About a week ago he came out in hives and has had a reaction on his neck that originally was weeping.
Now that's dried his fur has all fallen out around this site.
He still has hives on his coat around his neck.
Obviously we've taken him to the vets who has confirmed it's an allergic reaction, to what we don't know.
Obviously the first is to rule out his food. We changed to Millie's Wolfheart three weeks ago so this is the obvious first suspicion.
Upon checking their website they actually pride them selves on taking out the primary allergens so it's difficult to see what he might be reacting to in his food.

The next suggestion from the vet that it might be where we walk him. But he's walked the same fields from the moment we could take him out so not sure what could have changed there.
We're waiting for a call back from Millie's wolfheart nutritionist to discuss with them re his food.
Any advice how to find his allergen? Obviously it's going to be trial and error but wondering if anyone has any sage advise.

Flea treatment? Something that has got stuck on or under a collar or harness?

Could he have been bitten? This happened to DDog a few years ago, we woke up one morning, found a wasp in the bedroom and another dead one, poor Ddog absolutely covered in hives you could practically see them moving as they popped up and grew, it was horrible - the vet thought she had potentially eaten a wasp or been bitten inside her mouth to produce such a severe reaction as it was almost impossible that the wasp had stung her in so many places.

If all other tests scrapes etc have been done. I would ask for allergy tests, expensive but in the long run will save so much time and money! trying out different food and just guessing etc.

Just because you are walking in the same area does not mean an environmental cause as different plants insects etc appear at different times of the year.

If you’re going to rule out food you need to do it fairly methodically over a period of time, dogs can be allergic to all sorts of stuff, not just the most common ones.

TBH, I’d just go straight to a dermatologist and get allergy testing done.

Don’t rule something out as a potential trigger just because you know your dog has encountered it before, no matter how frequently, there’s a reason every permanent hair dye brand recommends allergy tests every single time someone dyes their hair, regardless of how long someone has used the same exact dye.

Novel proteins are less likely to cause an allergic reaction, but an allergic reaction is just an immune system overreaction, allergies can be caused by pretty much anything.
Peanut allergies are common in the west because we eat a lot of peanuts compared to other parts of the world, they’re not common in Africa, which allows them to be used to quickly and safely re-feed starving people in the form of peanut butter. If peanuts were as readily available and relatively commonly consumed as they are here, they’d have a similar instance of peanut allergy in Africa.

The only difference between chicken and reindeer in terms of allergic potential is how commonly it’s consumed, the more dogs get put onto novel proteins, the more cases of allergic reaction will be documented in regard to said novel proteins.