Pet food ingredients may (or may not) be the cause of your pet's itchy skin and digestive problems. In this post we examine some of the myths surrounding pet food allergies in pets.
MYTH:
“Food allergy is a less likely cause of my pet’s skin disease as we have been feeding the same food for years and the skin problem is a recent development.”
FACT:
It takes time to develop a food allergy, typically months to years. The immune system must be exposed and must develop enough antibodies to trigger an allergic reaction and this requires multiple exposures to the food in question. A reaction to a food that occurs on the first exposure to that food is not an allergic reaction. Such reactions are called “food intolerance's” and involve toxins within the food but not an allergic reaction. The most common age of pets affected by food allergies are before 5 months and after 5 years of age.
MYTH:
“Corn and grains are common food allergens and it is best to seek pet foods without these ingredients to avoid problems.”
FACT:
The most common food allergens for dogs are: beef, dairy, lamb and chicken. These ingredients account for 75% of canine food allergies. The most common food allergens in cats are: beef, dairy, and fish. These three ingredients account for 80% of feline food allergies. Reactions to grains for example account for <5% of all known food allergens.
MYTH:
“If it looks like my pet might have a food allergy, I should be able to manage the problem by switching to another diet.”
FACT:
Unfortunately for food allergic pets, most pet food diets contain some sort of mixture of beef, dairy, wheat, lamb, fish, and chicken. This means that simply changing foods is bound to lead to exposure to the same allergens. There are two ways to address food allergy: feeding a diet based on a truly novel protein source (this usually means an exotic diet like venison, duck, kangaroo, rabbit or even alligator) OR feeding a diet where the protein has been pre-digested into units too small to interest the immune system.
MYTH:
“My pet got only partly better after the food trial so that means it didn’t work.”
FACT:
Animals commonly have several allergies concurrently. A food allergy responding to a test diet at the same time an inhalant allergy is active will look like a partial response. On the other side of the coin, an inhalant allergy can become inactive should the weather change substantially during the diet trial. This would make a diet appear to be successful by coincidence. In order to determine if a response to a diet trial is real, at the end of the trial the patient is challenged with the original diet. If itching re-starts within feeding 2 weeks of the challenge, food allergy can be diagnosed.