Dog food allergies are linked to skin diseases in dogs (1). The gold standard for dog food allergies is the elimination diet. By removing suspected food allergens from your pet’s diet you may see a decrease in your best friend’s food allergy related symptoms.
Dog food may contain many highly allergenic foods such as wheat, corn, dairy, and soy (2). Based on a September, 2002 study published in Advances in Small Animal Medicine and Surgeryhese are the foods that may be the most allergenic for dogs:
- Beef – 34%
- Dairy – 20%
- Chicken – 20%
- Wheat – 16%
- Egg – 7%
- Lamb – 5%
- Soy – 5%
- Corn – 3%
- Pork – 2%
- Rice – 2%
- Fish – 1%
It looks like the foods dogs eat the most might be, or maybe “beef”, the cuplrits. After eating these foods your pet may experience an allergic reaction or it may not. There are common types of food allergies: IgE and IgG.
The IgE type reaction usually causes an immediate reaction and can cause swelling of the throat and other tissues that come in contact with the allergen.
The other type of dog food allergy is called an IgG type reaction or delayed hypersensitivity. The effects of this food allergy, if your dog experiences them, may take days to manifest. Thus, this type of food allergy is often hidden from the pet owners and more difficult to diagnose.
As I said at the beginning of this article, the gold standard for food allergy testing is the elimination diet. Many doctors prefer skin testing for IgE food allergies because elimination diets can be difficult to do because the diet can be very restrictive. A skin test involves injecting a small amount of the food allergen under the skin of the dog and waiting to see if a redness develops around the site. The bigger the red area or inflammation the more likely a food allergy has been detected.
There are other blood tests that seek to determine IgE food allergies. These involve drawing a sample of blood from the dog and testing it to see how many antibodies for different foods there are present in the dog’s blood stream. The accuracy of these tests is often disputed and some food allergies may be missed. Thus, if you suspect your dog has a food allergy and the test says its negative you do not have enough evidence to give your dog that food. It may be dangerous to base your dog’s diet on a blood test!
Currently, there is no test that I know of specifically to determine IgG dog food allergies. These are the “hidden food allergies” I discusses above. The benefit of testing for these types of food allergies is that you then have a guide to do a rotation diet. Rotation diets involve removing the suspected food for several days to see how symptoms change and then reintroducing the food to see if the symptoms reappear.
Research is being done at Meridian Valley Lab on dog food allergy testing and if you leave a comment below I will update you when this becomes available.
- Griffin, CE. Skin immune system and allergic diseases. In: Scott, DW; Miller, WH; Griffin, CE (eds). Muller and Kirk’s Small Animal Dermatology. WB Saunders,Philadelphia PA, 2001.
- Which Ingredients are Most Likely to Cause Food Allergies in Dogs and Cats?
