Anyone have a dog with food allergies?

[teenagebambam]

My little beagle is, presumably, allergic to something that he's been eating all his life. (Presumably, because he's scratching and itching and not responding to corticosteroids.)

He's been on a prescription hypoallergenic diet for two weeks now, with little improvement in his itching. The diet is recommended for ten weeks - I'm wondering if anyone has gone through this before, and how long it was before they saw an improvement in the itching?

[Butch350]

1. MIne suffered from the same....

Took my Rottie off of Iams and started him on Blue Buffalo dog food
and Blue Buffalo for my cat. My dog didn't agree with the crappy grain in the Iams.

[lukasahero]

2. We think ours did

We changed to a high quality dog food (had been on Science Diet at the shelter, changed to Wellness, now on Nature's Variey 'Instinct' - grain-free, gluten-free) and add a teaspoon of salmon oil to her meals. The scratching stopped within days of adding the oil but was considerably reduced just by changing her food.

[glinda]

3. My vote is for no grains or fillers. Iams is crappy.

[dropkickpa]

4. My dog is allergic to corn, wheat, chicken, and beef

most prescription diets are crap, to be honest, because they still usually have the big baddies in dog allergies. Corn and chicken are the 2 biggest culprits in food allergies in dogs. Beware of corn, corn syrups, hfcs, chicken, chicken meal, chicken fat, etc. I used to have a dog that had food allergies, so I recognized the signs when Agatha started showing them, so I immediately switched her to a corn free diet, and saw some relief within a week, and within 3 weeks saw a LOT of lessening of symptoms. I continued to eliminate the top allergens 1 by one until she was symptom free, it took about 4 months all together and several diet changes, and now she is totally symptom free and a very happy dog.

[XemaSab]

5. Allergic to chicken and beef

So what do you feed her? Lamb?

Chicken and rice is what vets recommend when dogs have diarrhea. One of our dogs vomited blood about two months ago (seemingly out of the blue) and we thought we might lose him. After a $1,200 stay at the vet, where he did many tests, he put him on Purina EN veterinary diet (a mixture of canned and dry); his x-rays look much better and there has been no reocurrence of the vomiting of blood. We have switched our other two dogs to homemade chicken, rice, and veggies, plus a scoop of the dry EN.

We love our dogs and we don't know what else to do.

[Scout]

6. my lab that had food allergies did well on venison and potato kibble

that we bought from the vet.

can't remember how long it was before we saw any improvement. my dog licked her feet a lot and rubbed her face on things. at one point had a yeast infection between her toes, but once that was cleared up the special food seemed to do the trick just fine.