Do you find yourself asking why is my dog always scratching? As a dog owner, watching your pet struggle with allergies can often leave you feeling frustrated and helpless, especially with no known cause or immediate solutions. Despite there being countless possibilities, you can still use a few clues to determine if food allergies are the culprit. Here are some signs.
- Constant Itching and Scratching: If you’re being driven crazy by the sound of your dog continually scratching, then it might be time to investigate. When the itching cannot be attributed to or eliminated with treatment to the common causes of skin irritation such as dermatitis or atopy, then the most likely trigger is something in his diet.
- Chronic Diarrhea and or Vomiting: As a dog owner, one may encounter sporadic cases of diarrhea that are nothing more than a slightly upset stomach. It is when this becomes a recurring theme of your daily walks that you should see this as a sign of a possible food allergy as your pup is having difficulty digesting something in its diet. Additionally, vomiting is a telltale sign that something they’re reacting to something in his food. Cases of vomiting with any sort of regularity should be noted and taken to your vet for further examination.
- Paw Chewing and Licking: Ever thought your dog was secretly eating something out of the trash, only to find them chewing on their paws? Well it’s not because she finds her fur tasty. Paw biting and obsessive licking is a dog’s attempt at trying to relieve the discomfort of an inflammatory response to an allergen.
- Hair Loss, Rash, and or Oily Coat: Hair loss is in many cases a result of the inflammation that accompanies your dog’s incessant scratching as it looks for relief from discomfort, but it could also be a byproduct of an underlying skin rash that has formed in response to the allergy. If this is coupled with your pet’s coat being oily and smelling foul, then beware of the possibility that a fungal infection, which has similar cause and symptoms, has developed.
- Yeast and Ear Infections: If your dog has a seemingly endless supply of earwax, the reason might go beyond your struggle to clean your dog’s ears. While A healthy amount of yeast should exist in your dog’s digestive tract as part of a normal immune system, that balance can be upset by the stresses that come with the overfeeding of starches and carbohydrates such as corn and potatoes. This leads to an overproduction of fungus which stimulates the foul odor, bronzing of the skin, and recurring ear discharge your pooch emits as it tries to fend off the excess yeast.
- Head Shaking and Face Rubbing: While headshaking could be a sign of nothing more than water in your dog ear after a bath, continuous shaking and rubbing his face into your carpets is indicative of some ear inflammation or skin irritation that he’s dying to mitigate.
- NO Relief from Hypoallergenic Shampoos: If you find that many of these symptoms, which are also attributable to environmental allergies and fleas, are not resolved by specialized shampoos then a logical explanation might be found under the stone unturned—your dog's diet.
Alhough there is no way to entirely prevent your canine companion’s dog food allergy, in most cases, the first step toward diagnosis requires a visit to the vet for further examination. After which, identifying the ingredient(s) normally involves a specialized elimination diet that first eliminates then reintroduces the foods you've been feeding to help reveal a trigger. This method has proven effective, but can also be quite time consuming and unclear as the allergy could be to multiple ingredients. It is essential to know that the best way to combat the issue is avoidance. Looking beyond traditional dog foods and perhaps introducing an all-natural or raw diet is a great option because many of the ingredients in foods labeled "natural" cause problems. While the idea of feeding your dog a raw diet may seem daunting, it’s important to realize that although a dog can develop an allergy to almost any food, many of the allergies our pets endure are a byproduct of feeding ingredients that are heavily processed and fail to align with the diverse diet nature would intend for not only our cuddly canines, but also their ancestral relatives—wolves.
It may seem overwhelming to watch your doggy best friend struggle as you try to pinpoint the cause of his food allergies, rest assured, solutions are much easier to hunt down with a growing community of dog lovers always being of resource. With some patience and education, you’ll be on the path to your pet being happy, healthy, and jumping at every meal!
Are you seeing any of these symptoms? Share your stories in the comment section below.