Hypoallergenic options

Tunage

Hi everyone,

I'm just wondering if there are any alternatives to Royal Canin Hypoallergenic food for dogs. My baby Boxer Bonnie is 1(+ a few months) and had a bad case of itchy paws so I took her to the vet.

He came to the conclusion that she had some skin thing (which I can't remember the name of becuase it was very long and didn't even sound English) and went on to land me with the 14kg bag of Royal Canin at £67 :eek: I nearly dropped there and then and with the shock I just paid for it and left.

It's coming near the end of the bag and I'm not in the best financial position to buy another £67 bag of food especially for her. We have 2 boxers and the older dog does fine on a €12 bag but now unfortunately we have to think of Bonnie's feet!

Am I going to have to do without food myself and buy this again or are there ANY options/alternatives?!

Thanks,
T

andreac

What food was your dog on before the royal canin? It's usually the food that causes stuff like itching and skin problems.

tk123

RAW ftw for both the dog and your wallet!!! Or if you don't fancy switching to raw go for a cereal free dry food.

Millem

Tunage wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I'm just wondering if there are any alternatives to Royal Canin Hypoallergenic food for dogs. My baby Boxer Bonnie is 1(+ a few months) and had a bad case of itchy paws so I took her to the vet.

He came to the conclusion that she had some skin thing (which I can't remember the name of becuase it was very long and didn't even sound English) and went on to land me with the 14kg bag of Royal Canin at £67 :eek: I nearly dropped there and then and with the shock I just paid for it and left.

It's coming near the end of the bag and I'm not in the best financial position to buy another £67 bag of food especially for her. We have 2 boxers and the older dog does fine on a €12 bag but now unfortunately we have to think of Bonnie's feet!

Am I going to have to do without food myself and buy this again or are there ANY options/alternatives?!

Thanks,
T

One of mine has atopic dermatitis and was put on hills prescription d/d food which she hated. I then switched all them onto burns and find it great http://www.zooplus.ie/shop/dogs/dry_dog_food/burns/burns_adult/156518

carav10

You could try looking at Skinners Sensitive. I use the maintenance & crunchy mix for my two but they do a Chicken & Rice Sensitive and Lamb & Rice Sensitive. Good prices with free delivery from Amazon.uk. Works out about €37.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/279-0662614-1382747?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=skinners


But check out exactly what the condition is first, and make sure that she is actually food sensitive and not environment sensitive. Has he done the allergy tests on her? If not, then bring her to another Vet....

lorebringer

One of mine gets ear problems from certain foods - itching like the bejesus and they end up very raw, sometimes has to go on medication for it - have found James Wellbeloved (also do "grain free" versions) and Burns work well for him, and are cheaper than Royal Canin (which, in my opinion, is very overpriced).

Carav10 got in before my, but if the irritation is localised to only the feet I would look into a contact irritation (that is, something in the dogs environment) - the usual suspects are cleaners, washing detergents used on bedding... anything you can think of that the dog comes into contact with regularly.

Stheno

Definitely agree that if it's only her feet/paws that it may be contact as opposed to food.

Have you seen an improvement on the new food?

Tunage

Thank you all for the replies!

We were feeding her a brand called Gusto which we still feed the other dog and she's had no reactions and loves it!
I initially thought that Bonnie may be allergic to something in the grass because after a few hours outside she would come in and eat her paws for an hour.

The vet suggested trying her on the food for a month and then blood allergy tests if there was no improvement in her. Fortunately, her wee paws are much better and I'd say she's only really been at them twice since we put her on it. And both times its been more of a little lick and a clean rather than the manic chewing.

The food is definitely helping her so I'm thinking this is what we need to do.

DBB

Tunage,
Are you saying that your dog had itchy paws up until recently, but the itching has abated now?
The change of diet having an effect seems to me to be a potential coincidence. If your dog was getting itchy feet having been out the back, and this problem was worst between August and October-ish, then harvest mites would surely have to be definitively ruled out? They tend to go away once the first frosts hit, so I'd be suspicious that any improvement was not the food, but the death-by-freezing of these itch-inducing little critters.

Tunage

What would you recommend if that was the case DBB?

DBB

Sorry Tunage, I'm not a vet, so wouldn't either diagnose nor advise treatment, I just threw it out there as another possibility! Harvest mites tends to stain the skin and hair orange, but if the hair around the feet isn't light, it can be hard to spot. There are a few treatment options, but you'll need to talk to your vet about these.
Whilst harvest mites are high on the list of suspects with itchy feet in late summer, food allergies are a huge contributor to itchy feet too. Indeed, both can come together at the same time, making it harder to diagnose.

Dingle_berry

Not to hijack the thread but…
My aunts red setter gets "red mites" in her paws that cause her to eat her feet. I think she picks them up at the beach? Simple vetrinary treatments available.
On the other hand my papillon cross seems to have what I thought was a habit of chewing his fore paws and their dew claws. Claws are kept short. Chewing does not cause anything more than maybe mild irritation, no broken skin etc. when I first got him I put him on royal canin. Since then I've tried a few brands. Moved back to royal canin lately to try to reduce his weight a little. Only after switching back to the royal canin he has started scratching allot more, even going under the coffee table to get his hind back. I remember him being like that on royal canin before. So that's 3 or 4 types of royal canin I've tried him on all with an increase in him scratching.
Where do I (and the OP) go from here without having a vet draw blood for allergy testing?
What's in, or not in, the royal canin hypoallergenic and anallergenic and dermacomfort ranges that's different to the other royal canin ranges?

TooManyDogs

For my 2c worth I would also suggest a grain free diet, particularly if it appears she's allergic to grass. Grains are members of the grass family so if she's sensitive to them then the diet could be constantly challenging her system and then going out onto grass could push it over the edge. There's a good few 'sensitive' foods, Taste of the Wild, Arden Grange and Barking Heads also do a sensitive, in addition to the other foods people have suggested

Tunage

Thanks everyone!

It's very hard to know what to do when they can't tell you themselves what's wrong
She was fussy at eating the Royal Canin and so we started adding a wee bit of gravy to it and I think that even since that she's started eating her paws a bit more

Might try the Skinner's Sensitive as another poster suggested, price seems reasonable enough compared to the Royal Canin!

carav10

Tunage wrote: »

She was fussy at eating the Royal Canin and so we started adding a wee bit of gravy to it and I think that even since that she's started eating her paws a bit more

Be careful of using gravy on a regular basis due to high salt content. One off is fine as a treat! But someone did warn me about using too much :-)