Allergies

Hi. I joined here some while ago when we had a beautiful old Staffy Lady, Leah. Sadly, we lost Leah to old age two years ago.

We now have a new addition, Rudi, a beautiful, dark red Staffy girl, who is a year old.

A while ago, she began biting at herself and scratching. After several visits to the Vet, we had allergy tests done and Rudi is allergic to beef, lamb, chicken, turkey, peas, corn, wheat, yeast, rice and oats.

We have found a good quality kibble and wet for her, which contain none of the above, and she has now been on her new diet for nearly two weeks. However, she is still biting.

Can anyone tell me approximately how long it should be before we see an improvement, before I take her back to the Vet?

4 - 6 weeks would be my recommendation before all toxins are gone. Have you tried Cortavance as a soother spray?

No. Is this available only from a Vet?

Thanks for your response.

Hmmm we got ours from the vet but I'm sure it's available without a script

Hi again. Thank you Ian for your help. I got the Cortavance spray lastnight from my Vet, (it does require a prescription), and it has really soothed the itching today for Rudi.

Never having had a dog with allergies, I wondered. Rudi dropped most of her coat in March and, as yet, hasn't really regrown it. Her coat is really sparse and even bald in places.

Could this be an effect of the allergies?

Allergies can be dreadful, we had a dog who had 18!

Have you looked at feeding raw? That what we ended up doing for Bobbert and it was brilliant. We still feed raw now as a result. By feeding straight raw meat, with anything else added as single ingredients by you, you can control exactly what a dog eats. Once you get into it, it's not all that hard and it's also not more expensive than a good quality kibble.

The other thing to think about is external factors. Look at things like cleaning/laundry products and other household chemicals. Try using a sensitive, non-fragranced washing powder, cut right back on the amount of chemicals you use in the house and eliminate things like air fresheners/scented candles, etc.

Good luck getting to the bottom of this. It is a pain in the backside but hopefully once you've got Rudi's balance right you'll be able to maintain it.

Hi Liz. Thanks for your response.

We have had allergy tests done for Rudi and, unfortunately, she's allergic to beef, lamb, chicken and turkey, so raw feeding isn't really an option. We do know she isn't allergic to anything in her environment. We found a good quality, venison based wet food she can have and a fish/potato kibble, (Wafcol), for her. Any treats she has I make myself with tuna or cheese and I use coconut flour, as she's allergic to wheat. My butcher has made me a batch of gluten free pork sausages and I've made small training treats from them. She's allergic to so many things, it's very difficult. I bought her a rabbit from the Butcher but, when I checked her Lab results, they didn't test for rabbit, so I daren't risk it.

I missed that bit! Sorry!