My dog has diarrhea and itchiness. Should I try a limited ingredient diet?

I would try hills z/d ultra or royal canin anallergenic (an even more restricted version). Ensure also she is not receiving any additional treats, flavored tablets, bones, table scraps or raiding any garbage bins. She may also require prescription medication to resolve the current flare up. A home prepared diet may be an option but would have to be formulated with the help of an expert nutritionalist and can only comprise of novel ingredients (foods she has never eaten before such as kangaroo/venison/sweet potato etc - these are very difficult to supplement sufficiently and are very expensive to maintain in the long term)

Hi and thank you for your question! I would highly recommend a food trial be done with snowball or get her tested for food allergies. This way you know what exactly she is allergic to and can avoid whatever it is. It is possible she could have developed a chicken allergy, yes. My best advice is to take her in for food allergy testing. Best of luck !

Hi, sorry to hear Luna is having this problem. If she has allergies that are not responding to allergy medication, she may need some tests to determine what is the cause of her allergy. IF can be environmental, or it can be food. If it is food, you can get a prescription hypoallergenic diet from your vet. Labradors are prone to allergies and it may be more than one thing setting her off. Since allergy medication is supposed to work soon and not last long, i would call your vet and ask for a different recommendation for allergy tablets. I see the main ingredients in the food you are feeding is lamb. It may be your dog is allergic to lamb, and you can try another meat based food like duck or venison. But if she has been fine on the food for 3 months, the food is not likely the cause. Can she possibly have gotten some other kind of food? Did anyone give her a tablet scrap or treat? That could have set off an allergic reaction. In this case, you just have to wait until it leaves her system and use an antihistamine. I would try a different antihistamine with a different main ingredient. Your vet can guide you to a product available in your area. Good luck with Luna! I hope this helps!

If Gemma was previously diagnosed with food allergies, then they don't seem to be better yet. What you are describing would definitely fit with a food allergy, so I'll give some comments about how I would address this problem. First, it can take several weeks for the allergy to go away after a diet change. So, if it's been less than six weeks after the diet was switched, then you'll need to wait a little longer before you know if it worked or not. Food allergies are due to certain proteins and they are usually animal proteins (beef, pork, dairy, etc.). To find the actual protein Gemma was allergic to, you must have done an elimination trial. If there was not an elimination trial done, then you would be only guessing at the source of the allergies. One way I often bypass the elimination trial is by recommending a hydrolysed protein diet such as Hill's i/d. In these diets, the proteins are broken down, so there is minimal chance of them causing an allergy. This would have to be prescribed by a veterinarian though. In the meantime, you may consider starting a diet trial to see if that helps to relieve the problems Gemma is having. Here is a link to a good article that explains how to do the diet: http://communityvet.net/2010/03/diy-elimination-diet-for-the-dog-an-cat/ Keep in mind that your diet trial will cease to work if she is getting any treats or table scraps. Make sure that there is no possibility of this happening - especially if there are kids in the house. As always, it's always best to do these things in consultation with your vet. They can also ensure that nothing else is responsible for the diarrhea. I hope this helps and Gemma feels better soon.

It is certainly possible that the food is the problem. I couldn't say what it is about that brand that is problematic, but some dogs simply do better with certain brands than others. If she has a chicken allergy, I would make sure that whatever brand of food you choose you check extremely carefully for ingredients, and may go as far as calling up the company. Sometimes they can sneak something like "poultry by product" in at the very end of the ingredient list and it is very easy to miss. There are also prescription diets available that are very low ingredient and generally safer for pets with dietary issues. Other issues that can cause gastrointestinal issues in dogs would include inflammatory or infectious diseases, immune-mediated diseases (such as IBD), certain cancers, liver disease, and a few other less common possibilities. If she hasn't already, it might be a good idea to obtain some blood work just to see if everything is checking out OK. Ultrasound and abdominal radiographs are also possibilities if you want to explore the problem in more detail.

Poor Pepper! If she has a food allergy/intolerance issue, then she needs to be on a strict veterinary prescription food allergy diet like Hills Z/D or Royal Canin Anallergenic. These diets are called "hydrolyzed protein" diets because they have gone through a special cooking process that breaks down potential allergens in the diet so Pepper's immune system doesn't recognize them as a problem. She needs to eat one of these diets exclusively for 8-10 weeks to see if there is a benefit. Hope that helps!

With a normal stool sample and blood panel, the next steps are experimenting with diet - specifically a hypoallergenic prescription diet (such as Royal Canin Ultamino, which is definitely the most expensive option, but also the one that seems to work best in diagnosing food allergies. It takes eating ONLY the prescription food for about a month to see if it helps, and then if it does help you can certainly experiment with less expensive foods. If you she would having signs of food allergy you'd need to do a full 3 months, but for intestinal issues, you should see a response in just a couple weeks) OR a high fiber/easily digestible diet (such as Hills Fiber Response EN). Some dogs need continual probiotics to keep normal stool. Treating any underlying anxiety (if present) can also help. Finally, a gut biopsy, which is much more invasive and costly can be done. Since she isn't yet spayed, I would consider doing a gut biopsy when/if she is spayed because that would be minimal additional expense or trauma for her while she's already have an abdominal surgery. I hope that helps! Wishing you the best with this difficult issue - It can take a long long time to get to the bottom of things