Dog Food Allergy Symptoms Every Dog Owner Must Know

Millions of dogs are brought into veterinarian offices every year seeking treatment for illnesses associated with dog food allergy symptoms.

Most dog owners don't know that their dog is actually suffering from an allergic reaction and suspect that it is something much more serious. When a dog is typically brought into the veterinarians office, the first thing that the vet wants to do is to run several diagnostic tests to rule out serious illness and send you home with an over priced, unnecessary prescription medication asking you to return if the condition doesn't improve.

Dog food allergy symptoms can show up in dogs in many different ways. The best advice that I can give you is to watch your dog for subtle changes. Changes can occur in your dogs skin or coat and may even be behaviorally related. Often dogs that suffer from dog food allergy symptoms become lethargic.

If your dog starts to develop dry skin or if you notice minor skin inflammations, I would first check for fleas and if none were present, I would start to suspect that these changes are symptoms of dog food allergies.

So what can you do if you suspect that your dog is suffering from dog food allergies? If you would have asked me this a couple of months ago, I would have recommended a popular dog food that has since been recalled and a course of Vitamin E. Now, I whole heartily recommend that you treat symptoms of dog food allergies just as you would if it were your child that you were treating. Start with your dogs diet but you may also want to apply Vitamin E oil on your dogs irritated skin.

The first step would be to take your dog back to a basic, bland diet and gradually add to their diet. This is the best way to monitor your dogs diet and pin-point the dog food ingredient that is causing the dog food allergy symptoms in your dog. While it is not healthy to have your dog on a bland diet for an extended length of time, it is fine to start with the bland diet and gradually add ingredients back into the food.