Food Allergies and Intolerance in Dogs

Food allergies can lead to constant itching, skin inflammation, or diarrhea in dogs. The only way to help affected dogs is through special allergy diets.

Does My Dog ​​Have a Food Allergy or Not?

Whether your dog has actually developed an allergy to its food is difficult to answer for a number of reasons:

1. The symptoms of itching, inflamed skin or diarrhea, vomiting, and flatulence not only occur with food allergies but also with many other diseases.
2. Most allergic reactions to food in dogs are so-called delayed reactions. They sometimes don’t show up for several days, making it difficult to determine exactly what caused them.
3. Affected dogs sometimes have other allergies (atopies) at the same time, e.g. against house dust mites, flea saliva, grass, and pollen. They complicate the diagnosis.
4. In contrast to other allergies, there is no “quick test” that can reliably prove a food allergy. Only a so-called elimination diet and a subsequent provocation test bring certainty.
5. In addition to a true allergy, there are a number of other undesirable reactions to dog food. Veterinarians call them e.g. food intolerance, hypersensitivity, intolerance.

In order to be able to make the diagnosis with certainty, you have to feed a special allergy diet for about 8 weeks. If your dog tolerates this diet, gastrointestinal symptoms will resolve fairly quickly (within two to three weeks), while it may take up to three months for the skin to fully recover. However, the itching should at least subside somewhat within the first few weeks of this elimination diet.

Real food allergies are not as common in dogs as many people think. These are often intolerances that the immune system has nothing to do with. However, the distinction between allergy and intolerance is of secondary importance for treatment anyway:

In both cases, your dog must be given special food for allergy sufferers that it can tolerate. Drugs such as cortisone can only support the therapy.

Which Dog Food is Suitable for Allergy Sufferers?

In the case of a real food allergy, your dog’s immune system reacts to actually harmless components of the food with a violent defense reaction – almost always to certain proteins (proteins or glycoproteins). There are two ways to prevent this:

1. All of the protein in dog food is broken down to such an extent by a process called “hydrolysis” that the immune system no longer recognizes it. The nutritional value of the protein in such a “hydrolyzed diet” is not altered.
2. A single protein source is used (single protein or selected protein diet) and if possible only a single carbohydrate source in the food for allergy sufferers. Preferably one that the dog has never eaten or to which allergies very rarely develop.

The most important and difficult part of treating food allergy is:
Your dog may only get his allergy food and nothing – absolutely nothing – else.

What Distinguishes a Good Food for  Allergy Sufferers?

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a hydrolyzed diet or single-protein food: producing good complete food for allergic dogs is expensive.

It must meet high-quality standards:

• All ingredients must be of particularly high quality.
• For example, the protein sources must be selected in such a way that your dog can optimally utilize them. This in turn promotes skin and intestinal health.
• All raw materials must be cleaned so that they are not contaminated with proteins to which your dog may be sensitive.
• For example, fish oil — which is often added for its anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids — must not contain any fish protein.
• All ingredients should be easy to digest, as dogs with food intolerance often have digestive problems.
• It also makes sense to add certain dietary fibers or probiotics, which help to rebalance the disturbed intestinal flora (microbiome) and strengthen the intestinal barrier.
• Substances to which intolerance often occurs should not be included.
• Only certain colorings or preservatives may be used because some of these additives can increase allergic reactions.

That’s why it’s unfortunately not enough to buy cheap dog food in the feed market, which is called “lamb and rice”, for example. Because even though it says lamb on it, that doesn’t mean that such food only contains lamb.

Instead, allergy sufferers should get a high-quality veterinary diet food, for example from Royal Canin, Hill’s, or Specific. Only then is it guaranteed that all the requirements of an allergy diet are met.