Just wondering if anyone else read this and what they thought of it.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/26/pet.allergies/
I didn’t think it was overly informative and the allergy testings they covered are not the easiest way to go about testing your dog. At least not in my opinion.
For food allergies, they suggested and elimination diet which I don’t recommend because it will take forever to find out what the allergen or allergens are.
For seasonal allergies, they recommend sedation and injection of potential allergens into the skin to see if there are any reactions.
In both cases, I feel the best thing to do is have the vet draw blood. You’ll need two vials: one for the food test, and one for the indoor/outdoor allergy test. Your pets blood gets sent off to a lab, and is tested for hundres of different potential allergens. Your results are back in about 1 -2 weeks and you have a handy print out of everything your dog is allergic to. Yay!
Then you can go about finding a food that will work for them. If your dog has a lot of different food allergens like my dogs do, you’ll be spending a lot of time in the pet store reading food labels. But don’t worry, you’ll find something.
For the indoor/outdoor it’s a bit trickier. There are allergy shots, which are expensive and time consuming. You can also use steroids and antihistamines, but I don’t think either are good long term. We just deal with it for our girls, because they really only have 3 bad months from August through October. But we did find out that Phoebe has allergies to feathers, so we got rid of our feather pillows. Emma has allergies to pyrethrum, which is found in some flea and tick treatments, so that was helpful too.
You can find out more about the blood tests for allergies here. This is the company that handled both my girls testing.
http://www.vetallergy.com/pages/petowners.html
Take care and I’ll talk to you soon.
Andi
Dogs with Allergies
