Dog Food Allergy

A dog food allergy and intolerance's may cause your dog to vomit frequently, or have diarrhea, or show skin irritation, poor coat condition and/or hair loss? Any or all of these symptoms could point your veterinarian to allergies, and specifically an allergic response to the food you feed. Ingredients in food that your pet cannot tolerate may result in a variety of negative reactions. Allergy and food intolerance is also called an adverse reaction to food and can create ongoing problems with both the skin and the digestive tract.

There are many possible causes for food allergy in dogs. However, some of the ingredients that cause the most common problems are frequently found in everyday pet foods .

In dogs, the most common causes of adverse reactions are beef, dairy products, wheat, chicken and pork.

It may take months or years before a pet develops an allergic response to a particular food. However, once an adverse reaction begins with a certain ingredient, your pet will almost always be allergic to that food source. Because adverse reactions to food are most commonly associated with protein sources, your pet may need to be fed a protein source that he has not eaten before. Some of the most frequently used "novel"proteins (called novel because they are intended to be new to your pet) are egg, duck, salmon, lamb and whitefish. In certain cases, through the process of elimination, it may be discovered that your pet is allergic to all these protein sources and will need a food with specially broken down proteins.