At the end of my tether with two itchy dogs, which dry food?

[AllGrownUpMolly]

I have 2 itchy dogs.

I'm just at the end of my tether with years of it. Raw, wet, freeze dried. Non of it stops it completely.

Have had Ddog2 allergy tested for environmental triggers as she spent 8 weeks on hydrolysed food and is still licking her paws constantly.

The sound drives me insane.

Starting to think its environmental or behavioural.

So I am just going to pick a dry food and that is what they are staying on because I've spent hundreds on trying to figure it out, not to mention time and research and I'm just done with it all.

Its not a terrible reaction they have, they aren'tlosing fur or scabby or anything. They just have dry skin, some skin irritation, scratching and licking. Its the licking sound that gets me 😭

I had this for years and tried all the vet recommended foods. I ended up on Burns pork & potato food and he was also ok on Burns salmon & rice - both in the sensitive range.

I share your pain OP, I've got 2 spaniels with ongoing colitis that seems to appear out of thin air. We've tried hydrolised protein, single source novel protein, home cooking, cutting out all poultry. Still getting colitis bouts far too often and vet just isn't interested - they prescribe steroids, dia-tabs and boiled rice/chicken diet. I've spent nearly £3k this year on vet visits, tests, different foods/supplements that people swear by on social media. And it's all a load of bollocks.

I've just put mine onto Arden Grange vetcare gastrointestinal. It's duck and sweet potato, and touch wood both seem happy on it and no sign of gastric upset so far. I'm done trying anything else so they're on this for the long term.

My dog very similar. Has lots “thin / shallow” superficial patches where he loses what looks like the upper most layer of skin and then lots of smaller but deeper / more raised flaky scabs.

I wash him twice a week with Malasebe and he’s been on a hydrolysed food diet now for coming up on 7 weeks but it seems to have made little difference (albeit, he is less gassy!).

so any suggestions or advice gratefully received!

My miniature schnauzer is the same - the vet never mentioned cutting out chicken. Is turkey likely to have the same effect- I started feeding her turkey mince last week to see if it would help.

thanks everyone, I have found this thread most helpful.

So pleased to hear this. Old fashioned fish oil is fabulous stuff and often overlooked in the quest for the "perfect" dog food but it has worked wonders on ours!

Our dog is allergic to something in dentastix. Took us a long time to work out it wasn't the food giving him eczema and gunky ears, but the daily treat.

ETA he is a huge fusspot (poodle) but he adores Miraculous Meals kibble, much to my surprise!

Ps, both of my dogs react to hypoallergenic food as it is always chicken based. It took for my previous dog to start having poos with blood but not even that was enough to convince the bloody vet that the very expensive hypoallergenic food she was convinced poor dog should continue to have was not good for her. So I stopped it and started cooking her a soft diet until she was well enough to put it back on dry dog food (in her case Burns pork and potato worked a treat for years and years)

I feed these, you could just try the Skinners, I give it to all three but only one has allergies. More tummy issues but 99% better now for a sustained period of over two years.

Fish based dry food or raw food sorted ours out. Both worked fine. We had to go all in though. No chicken or feathers at all, so no treats with chicken as a filler (hard)! Nothing feathery at all in any form and it got better quickly. We used apoquel for 6 months along with the strict fish diet and we went from 1 dog rubbing himself raw on the carpet and the other 1 scratching her left ear constantly with yeast infection after yeast infection. To both of them doing so much better, his fur has grown back and the other one hasn’t had a yeast infection for a long time now.

our big boy is 17 and I just wish we’d found a way to keep him itchy free a lot earlier!! Trouble is they use chicken as a filler in bloody everything!!!

Raw fish based food worked quicker for us to get the itch away but I realise it is not for everyone!!

One of my previous dogs nearly died from a shampooing incident! It's a very long story but anyway, we were referred tovthe Royal Veterinary College, where we saw 3 dermatologists.

The end result- they identified it was shampoo but it was from open bottles ie if we opened a new bottle he was fine, but if we then kept it forvthe next time, then he would have an awful reaction.

Our vet knew it was to do with the bathing, but couldn't understand why he could be okay some times and not others.

Anyway, your dog probably doesn't have a shampoo allergy, OP (you know it's shampooing if the problems are along the spine from head to tail, as this is where shampoo is first applied and is strongest), but I mention it re the RVC and getting a referral to really knowledgeable vets.

No chicken here either we use the Josera dry food just fish.

We use milles wolfheart .. no grain and plenty no chicken options... Ours also allergic to chicken... Seems ok with turkey but generally don't get that either.. you can get test bags and also talk to them

I feel your pain. I have a miniature poodle that has exactly the same issue. I’m now at the point where I give her a hypoallergenic biscuits and just use eardrops and antihistamines as necessary because I just can’t afford to do anything more. It isn’t that bad when I do that, but I’m convinced it’s food as well as environmental and so it’s impossible to eliminate completely. It’s the noise that does my head in as well!!!

@JustWhyTho aww they are gorgeous :)
I have been going through this with one of my terriers OP, have tried several grain free etc he’s fussy as hell with feed so really hard to get him eating fish.
he went in for a dental this week and whilst there we decided to try him on the Cytopoint Inj 20mg to see if that helps with the itching.
she said it can be a monthly jab or every 6/8 weeks see how it goes, he hates tablets aswell so gone for the jab which is £95.18 at my vets so looks like I’m in for a costly solution here
I’ve started putting salmon oil in with his dinner and he hasn’t gona off it yet , I hope yours are doing better