Can anybody recommend a dog food that actually taste good to the dog? My dog is so picky and I’m almost positive she’s allergic to chicken. I’m doing an allergy test this weekend to be sure but we are on our second ear infection and both happened when I switched from beef to chicken dog food. She hates Purina dog chow. Can someone recommend some food your dog actually likes with zero chicken?
My dog has been to 2 dermatologists. He also had an alley blood panel done by the regular vet.
Since he was about 1.5-2, he's had, what I believed to be severe allergic itching. He's 5 and he is constantly scratching and biting his paws. The allergy skin test did not show any allergies. The blood test showed an allergy to dist mites, dairy, and a minor chicken allergy. He was apoquel and it did help but it had to be stopped, due to a medical issue.
However, when he's in the car, he doesn't scratch or bite his paws. As severe as the itching seems to be in the house, it doesn't seem likely that he'd be so distracted in the car, that he could ignore it.
Does this seem to be behavioral? If so, why did apoquel help?
Hi All,
I guess I’m reverting to Reddit to see if anyone has found the ‘magic’ cure for dog allergies. I’m sure it doesn’t exist but even something to relieve my poor 3 year old Golden x Collie
Back story, I got him from the pound when he was 6 months old. When we got home, I noticed how itchy he was and after about a month I decided to do a hair allergy test. It had a lot of tree pollen and other things that weren’t local to us in South Carolina so I went to his vet where he was put on Apoquel and while it does relieve him somewhat, I have seen a lot of people say it causes strange cancers and I can’t bare the thought of thinking of that happening to him.
I went to his vet where they did the Nextmune test which was $700 and he started the vials but when he got to the third vial, he started having an adverse reaction which I know now to be borderline anaphylactic shock.
We were referred to a dermatologist where they scraped his skin and didn’t find anything so they put him on a food trial, which he’s been on for 4 months now. We have his recheck in June but I have noticed he has been super itchy in the last month of so. I did call the dermatologist and she said she doesn’t think it’s food related but to keep him on the food.
She wants to do another test - IDX Allergen Panel: South Atlantic/Gulf with 3 Starter Vials. This test is $900 and while I appreciate them, I just feel like we are going around in very expensive circles.
I have tried probiotics and he did have 1 cytopoint shot when he was about 8 months old but I don’t remember it to do too much for him. I did just order Better Wild allergy chews to see if they will work.
I really want to see if anyone has found anything that helped their dog get some relief and have a good quality of life
Between health insurance for 3 senior dogs, flea meds, cytopoint, apoquel, and frequent vet visits for the one with allergies it adds up to well over $1000/month.
People make me feel bad about it like it’s optional or I choose to throw away money….i do not give my dogs away just because they’re seniors.. people annoy me lol
Looking for what people did when they hit this exact wall because I'm there. My dog itches, has been itching consistently for four months, vet workup is done. No fleas, skin scrape clean, no mites, no ringworm, bloodwork normal. We did a 10 week elimination food trial on venison and sweet potato and nothing changed. So now the vet says environmental allergies which is a diagnosis but isn't actionable.
The next steps offered are intradermal allergy testing which is hundreds of dollars and may or may not give us anything we can use, immunotherapy injections which are a multi year commitment, or staying on apoquel indefinitely. None of those is exciting to me. The testing might not change anything, immunotherapy is a long road, and apoquel forever is a thing I'd like to avoid if there's a reasonable alternative.
So before I commit to one of those routes I'm trying to figure out what people actually did when the obvious options were exhausted. Did you do the allergy testing and was it actionable. Did you find a supplement stack that managed it well enough to skip the prescription path. Did you just accept a moderately itchy dog as your reality.
Not looking for "try fish oil," I'm fishing for what people did after fish oil was already on the list.
My dog (4 year old blue staffy) has dealt with allergies since he was a puppy. Started on Apoquel once he turned 1 and then last year started zenrelia which has been great for us.
One thing that we can’t seem to fix are his paws. We wipe them with a draw microfiber towel when he comes back in from outside. Douxo wipes before bed every night. Bath 1-2 times a week. He does lick his paws still a lot which is feeding the yeast. He also gets native omega oil every morning.
His paws a red and sometimes gets bumps and abrasions which makes walking him tough cause he does pull (another problem for another day).
We just got ruffwear boots which do fit him well but we have to wait till his paws heal before we try them again. Anyone else dealt with this specifically? Would trying cytopoint in addition to zenrelia be an option?
Hello everyone, I’m new to this sub.
I have a 2yr old border collie mix that has atopic dermatitis and it’s allergic to lots of things. Currently we are using cytopoint + apoquel(cytopoint effect lasts for around 2 weeks and then we use apoquel). Does anyone ever tried something like this? Is there any different medications that we should consider asking the vet? Thank you!
Hi everyone! could really use some advice or guidance. A little background: Winston turns 7 in a few weeks, is about 70 lbs, super chill, and his favorite things are eating and sleeping.
Each year, his environmental allergies seem to get worse. The main symptoms are licking his paws and shaking his ears, which eventually turn into yeast infections. I’ve done allergy testing and confirmed it’s environmental allergies. After every walk, I wipe down his paws, and I also use antiseptic wipes or foam a few times a week. If I use them too often, though, his paws get very dry and that seems to make the licking worse.
Apoquel and Cytopoint haven’t been effective, and we also tried immunotherapy shots, but those caused GI side effects.
More recently, I started giving him a pre/probiotic with breakfast along with an allergy chew a friend recommended, although I’m not sure it’s making much of a difference.
Unfortunately, the different vets I’ve tried haven’t been very helpful long term, and it often feels like we’re just putting a bandaid on the issue, especially with repeated antibiotics.
I have seen a pet dermatologist but they just shared maintenance work based on the above which obviously doesn’t help.
I’d really appreciate any advice, suggestions, routines, diet changes, or products that have helped your dogs with environmental allergies and recurring yeast issues. Thank you so much!
Has anyone switched from Zenrelia to Numelvi and noticed their dog acting differently? My dog was previously stable on Zenrelia (+ a kangaroo based diet) after a few flares. My vet, who is super awesome and I trust, suggested switching her to Numelvi because of the more targeted mechanism of action. She’s not itching (at least not that I can tell) but she’s just acting weird.
She is slinking around the house looking guilty like she does when she’s itchy, she doesn’t want to go for her daily car rides, it takes a lot of coaxing to get her up and moving, and she seems like she’s having more trouble moving around the house. She’s 11.5 but she’d been doing pretty well before this. She doesn’t seem like she’s in acute pain but she seems depressed for want of a better word (though I know that could be anthropomorphisizing her behavior).
I’m going to keep her on the Numelvi for the rest of the month (she’s started about a week ago) and hope she gets used to it but wondered if anyone else had a similar experience.
my dog has been taking immunotherapy drops for about a year. when we went to the dermatologist for a one year follow up, they found yeast on his paws and gave me 40 days worth meds to treat it. I think it is still there he still licks. I'm not sure the immunotherapy is addressing the yeast, so what would?