Getting frustrated with hypo-allergetic food test

[gizzipunk]

About 3 weeks ago, I took my 6 yr old male pug to the vet because of excessive scooting and itching his inner thigh raw. The vet said his anal glands were moderately impacted, but the areas that are itching are likely caused by a protein allergy. I was given Hills 100% hypo allergetic food and had to gradually phase his beneful food out and then have him eat nothing but the z/d stuff for 4-6 weeks. Well it's been quite the challenge to keep him away from the other dogs food. Most often the other 2 dogs eat at different times than he does. I open feed my dog the hypo allergetic stuff and the other pugs don't eat from his bowl. When we feed the other dogs, we keep mine in another room until they are finished. Sometimes a piece of kibble escapes and my dog eats it. Other times, a family member forgets that my dog can't eat his kibble and puts the other pugs' leftover uneaten food back onto the floor for them, and my dog escapes the couch, and i'm unknowing that the other food is on the floor, and he gets into it! This keeps resetting the experiment of whether or not he is actually allergic to protein or not. I can say that my dog didn't eat anything but the z/d for at least 2 weeks straight and had maybe a couple pieces of rachel ray food before he was caught. he still seems to be itching the same amount. Anyone else have any comments or experience with this?

[6 Beautiful Pugs]

Oh wow, there is so much on here regarding allergy pugs. My best advice is to take all of your dogs off the Beneful and Rachel ray stuff and feed them all a high quality unique protein diet, then you can add stuff to it slowly later if you like. While Beneful is popular it is a very low quality food. Unfortunately the Hill's z/d stuff, although expensive, is not very good either. many dogs have problems with it, because of the large amounts of corn and chicken. Even though it's "hydrolized" it can still have reactions.

Try going to Petco or PetSmart and picking up some Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Venison or Potato and Fish and start feeding that only. There are even better foods, but the cost is much more, and they are not available at places like Petco, so start with the Natural Balance. Do not feed your dogs anything else for a good couple weeks and see how your itchy guy is doing then.

Also, do some searches for "allergy" on this site. There is literally a ton of great information.

Good luck and I hope your guy is feeling much better very soon. Please keep us updated and maybe post some pictures of your guys!

Take care,
Lisa

[PugSavers]

I agree with Lisa...take all the dogs off the Beneful. There are so many chemicals in there and not a lot of quality.
The vast majority of pugs I have known over the years are fine with a fish based quality food. I would give that a try.
And while the food may be more expensive for the bag, you will likely have to feed less of it.

[ihavepugs2]

Thanks for the tip, I too have a itchie pugger, and am looking for better foods. I am just not a pro at selecting the right food. I don't like science diet, excipe the R/D weight for helping to lose weight. I feed Iams, and other in my pack do fine with it. Rose, it seems to be the corn. She was doing well this month, no problems, til hubby,(after I told him not to feed the squirrels) put corn out. Rose went and gobbled some down, and now we have the itchies again. But I'm still looking for that perfect food for her.

[Bustersmom1]

Oh, does this sound familiar! I have been going through this food allergy with Buster of late (and everyone here was very, very helpful!) Our vet recommended the ZD food as well and I did not have any luck with the ZD Food, he actually got worse. I ended up taking him off all kibble and cooking him food, trying one type at a time to see what he was allergic to. We determined there were a few items he did not tolerate well, but the main one was chicken and it was the protein in all of the kibbles he had up to that point. I can't say what your gal is allergic to, but we had our best luck with fish & red meat based protein foods so far (this is still on going). The brands were all ones recommended by PVers and they have worked so far.

[ihavepugs2]

Thanks for your reply. I just hate it when she has a bought with the allergy's. My problem to is we live in a small/med town in illinois. We have two really good pet stores and a farm supply store that carry most of the more quality foods. Don't have a petsmart (wish we did), we're getting a petco(not finished building yet). So sometimes we make a trip to Springfield Il. to petsmart. I could order on line, but hate to do it as I have had credit number stolen twice. But we're working on it. LOL! Does anyone recemend Solid Gold salmon?

[6 Beautiful Pugs]

I swear we need a separate room for allergies. It is so common with these dogs!

Take care,
Lisa