Springer with skin allergy - help?!

Hi

We rehomed our 5 year old springer 3 months ago, and she is turning out to be the most lovely dog but also a bottomless pit of money!

We didn't know anything about her history as she was pretty much left to live in a stable before we took her on. We've had her spayed but poor thing had a bad reaction to the anesthetic and so that ended up being rather complicated. The latest is a very expensive trip to the vet and now what seems like an expensive future in order to diagnose / treat a skin allergy. When she arrived she had a nasty sore on her shoulder, I was told this may have been a bite from another dog, but I now know it is where she scratches herself. She must be so uncomfortable and itchy to scratch and gnaw herself like she does.

The vet has put her on course of steroids and has taken some blood tests to see what she is allergic to. The vet said it can be a complicated and expensive process to treat. Does anybody have any experience of this? Also, the vet said to put her on Hills z/d ultra or Purina HA.... I've just looked them up and both are v expensive compared to the working dog dry food that I get from my local horse / dog food supplier!

Between my horse and dog they are breaking my bank account at the moment and husband is not pleased Can anybody offer any advise?! The biggest thing is I want to see my lovely dog comfortable without horrible sores.

Thanks in advance

Hills z/d ultra is one of the few truly hypoallergenic foods in that the protein is hydrolysed and thus unable to trigger an allergy.

If it is the food (as opposed to the environment) that is causing the skin problems, then you should see an improvement within 6 weeks.

Thus you can then start reintroducing foods to determine what she is allergic to.

If there is no change then her issues will be environmental.

These are trickier to treat.

The most common causes of skin allergies are fleas, so ensure the dog AND the house and car are treated.

After that it is the dust mite, practically impossible to eradicate but Indorex house spray tackles both fleas and teh house mite.

I assume you do not use any shake and vac products, or biological washing powder on her bedding, another common cause of skin problems.

When starting a new food you may wish to consider one that is grain free, as it is often grains that exacerbate the problems.

So something like Orijen 6 fish or Fish 4 dogs may be something to consider.

In addition the following can help dogs with allergies:

Probiotics - Yumpro by Lintbells or Super20 probiotic from Healthspan
Vitamin C - natural antihistamine
Fish Body Oil capsules -Healthspan (not CLO)
Vitamin e

Again, you will need to wait around 6 weeks to see an improvemtn

HTH

Cheapest I can see hills z/d ultra is at viovet if that helps

Springers are really bad for food allergies, I use fish and potato for mine---when I fed her grains she nearly died and lymph glands came up all over the place.

Scratching can also be caused by too much food.

Good luck.

rune

Have you done the Elimination diet?
That`s when you try to eliminate whatever she is reacting to...http://communityvet.net/2010/03/diy-...he-dog-an-cat/

The trouble with the `prescription` diets is that they may contain precisely what the dog is sensitive to. They are generally simply chicken and rice (I have a friend whose dog was allergic to both chicken AND rice) and you can simply provide that yourself at a fraction of the price.

I would ask for a referral to a specialist, or else work on finding the triggers yourself. These could be multiple - I had a GSD who reacted to food colouring, cat fleas and pollens.

Just a note the Hills z/d ultra is NOT just simply chicken and rice, as I said in my original post, the protein is hydrolysed so that it cannot trigger an allergic reaction.

That is why it is expensive.

Hydrolysed protein means the original protein is broken down into smaller amino acids (a proteins is a groups of amino acids containing more than 10 amino acids, IIRC) thus it is less likely to trigger an allergic reaction, as it is less "visible" and recognisable to the immune system, unfortunately it does not mean it cannot trigger a reaction.

An entirely novel food cannot cause an allergic reaction on first exposure as the immune system does not recognise it, but this requires a novel protein and a novel carbohydrate source and that in itself requires that you know what your dog has already been exposed to, which can be harder than you might think as ingredients are not always very specific as to the protein and carbohydrate source used.

Some dogs are better on a hydrolysed diet for allergies, others do better on a home cooked diet. It the allergy is not to an item(s) in the diet it will not help much anyway.

Have they done skin scrapes and blood testing? Be aware that if you go the referral route the costs rocket

Well nothing is impossible, but it is much less likely than any other type of "hypoallergenic " foods on the market. Also these diets are made from very low protein usually to enhance this effect ie mostly carbohydrate.

So the success rate of these diets are generally circa 90%