Hi All

I expect you have seen my recent posts about Hamish my westie with itchy skin, he has been in a very bad way poor little man and we have just got his allergy tests back, he has got numerous allergies including, housedust, grass, trees, pollen, moulds, weeds, the total allergens were 12 and 11 borderline, i will get a complete printout next week as the results had to be entered onto the computer first as they only came back last night, to food he is allergic to turkey, peanuts, soya beans, corn, wheat, potatoes and rabbit.
He is currently on Atopica for the Atopy, 6 weeks of antibiotics for a staphlycoccus infection and he also has a malassezia infestation which we are using malaseb to bath him in twice weekly, the Atopica is not controlling him enough so he is having anti-inflammatory injections aswell to control the constant itching to give him some relief, i know long term these can have serious side effects but hopefully they are just for short term use!!
The vet has suggested putting him onto a prescription diet but i am not sure about this as i have heard they are not that good, he was on Wafcol salmon and potato a while ago but i am glad i changed him, especially now i know he is allergic to potatoes!! I having currently been feeding him BARF but he is not showing any signs of improving on this even after 12 weeks of feeding, so i am now looking through the list of foods that the labs sent back as okay to feed, they include Nutro and Burns, i have just contacted the Burns helpline and they were very helpful in suggesting that he try the Fish, Venison or Duck as they said that other westie's have done well on these varietys, i just wanted to see if anybody else had tried Burns with good results and am just looking for a bit of feedback really before i decide which 1 will be best to try him on. I don't want to keep changing his food as i know this does not do them any good, but now we have the results back i feel at least i know what he is allergic to and can try and get him on the right food.
I am just concerned that if my poor little man is suffering this much now even in the winter months when the pollen is low what is he going to be like through the summer months when the pollen is high and it is warm, i just cannot see him suffer any more than he is at the moment. I just wish i could make him better.
I am trying to leave the elizabethan collar off as much as i can when i am in as i feel it gives him some normality back into his life as i would not like to live with that collar on 24/7 but you have got to watch him like a hawk because when your back is turned he starts to either rip at his front legs or start chewing his front paws, i am just keeping my fingers crossed that we may turn the corner soon and see some much needed improvement.
Will keep you all posted as to how he gets on.
Thanks in advance
Helen and Hamish

Hi Helen,

Sorry to hear Hamish has so many allergic problems :( but at least you know what you're dealing with now and hopefully can keep him comfortable and happy. 

Re foods, I've used both the venison and duck varieties of Burns and two out of three of mine did very well on it.  The dog which I ordered it for in the first place didn't :rolleyes: so I then switched to one you're leaving behind (Wafcol S&P).  I think Burns is an excellent food but it did make my lot a touch lean and I was at the time trying to put weight on one of them.   Certainly what I liked (and still do) about Burns is that it has minimal ingredients so less things to worry about in each recipe.

Very best wishes for Hamish and you.  HTH a little.  regards, Teri :)

Hi Teri

Thanks for your post, yes Hamish is going through it poor little thing but fingers crossed i am hoping he will improve. I have heard that the Burns makes them thin this is what i am concerned about as he is not a fat westie anyway, i did phone naturediet up this afternoon when i came home and they advised that the only variety i could give him would be the lamb,rice and carrot as all the other varietys contain something that he is allergic too, so i am not sure whether this would be better than the Burns to try him on. It is such a difficult choice to make as i don't want to keep changing his food.

Helen

I also feed Nature Diet, Helen - and my dogs' favourite flavour is the Lamb one.  I don't think they'd mind if I fed that to them forever!

If you're worried that Burns might make him thin, you can firstly obviously try feeding more of it, and secondly you can add a tablespoon of oil (olive oil preferably) to it.  That's assuming that he can eat olive oil.  It's not like you have a lot of choice, so you might want to try the oil option.

The only other things I can say is that Nature Diet is definitely tastier to the dog than Burns is.

However, ND also costs considerably more than Burns.  ND costs about 50p per pack if you order it direct from them. 

You just have to decide if you want to feed wet or dry.

Also - you might want to look into James Wellbeloved.  I've no idea how that would compare for his allergies etc, but they have a Duck flavour and a Fish flavour too, and unlike Burns they don't have the reputation of making the dog thin, so have a look at the ingredients and compare: www.wellbeloved.co.uk

Hi Helen

Poor Hamish, but let's hope now you've got a diagnosis things will get better.

I've fed the Burns Venison and the Fish, and mine loved it and did well on it.  I don't have Westies though.  IMO Burns is one of the best foods out there and you can't go far wrong with it.

Poor Hamish he is having a rough time.
My puppy (he is a Westie) was on Burns fish and rice and was doing rather well on it, he did stop itching his stools had improved and had put on weight but for some reason on New Years Eve this all changed and he hasn't been the same since so taking him back to vet today as I'm unsure at what is going on with him (was about to post for some advice before going). Everyone I have spoken with have said Wafcol (but u can't use it even the other flavours :( ) Burns or NatureDiet are the best foods and Westie's who have many allergies have done fantastic on them. What I would do is only purchase a small bag and try it out to see what happens.

Hi, my hubby had a Westie with terrible skin problems...I recommended Nutro, he did very well on it and his skin improved no end within a week! I would say give Nutro a try if all else fails?? Here's wishing the wee man well! love Dawn X

Sorry to hear about your Westie :(  Hopefully you'll find that it is a food intolerance and with the right food there will be a considerable improvement :)  I've been looking into both Burns and Wafcol for our little girl and one of the plus points of them are that they come in several different flavours all of which are designed for intolerances/allergies.  This enables you to 'rotate' the flavours and hopefully prevent fussy eating.  All you can do is get a 2Kg bag of one brand, try your WHWT on it and see how he goes

P.S.  Both of the above brands do a variety for dogs with (for want of a better word) 'bad' intolerances so if your little doggy is still not right on the 'main' varieties you can always try that one :)

I would watch Nutro,it is extremely grain heavy and no doubt there would be traces of corn,soy in their lines! I would be going over their ingredients with a fine tooth comb and make sure they havnt fudged with the wording in the ingredient list.

I know of some dogs who cant eat foods that have been made in the same factory that put wheat et al in their other lines,as some way or the other there are traces of the offending allergen in all of the foods,being is such close proximity to eachother, wether it's meant to be there or not!

had exactly the same problem with my mongrel
we put her on the prescription hills z/d - made no difference and i wouldn't touch it with a barge pole now.
she was allergic to loads of things including house dust mites, grass, moulds etc etc and so now in the summer she wears little boots as it stops her being in contact with teh grass - this makes all the difference as she used to bite her feet to pieces and we use to spend loads of money on bandages. now all she needs is these boots and it reduces her allergy quite considerably.

as for food, she used to be on tablets - tavagil antihistamine twice daily until we switched to burns and now she needs no tavagil in the winter and a reduced amount in the summer. best food i have used and suits her very well - may not suit yours so well but you could try it. i have tried nutro, wafcol, jwb and none worked so well as burns. but each dog is different.

house dust mites - well they are a problem but all we do is wash bedding every week and she also stays in the kitchen where there is no carpet. it probs sounds mean but they love it in there as it is really big as there is a conservatory on the end and that is all they have ever know (mum wanted to get thro puppy stage in a non carpeted area). pesto is a very noise phobic dog and will not come out of the kitchen even if you ask her so its suits her down to a tee.

anyways my point is that it is just about monitoring and making the allergies as few as possible. good luck and remember it will take a while till you find the best solution but it is worth it in the end.

good luck
anna

We had the same problem with my Afghan X (died of 'old age' 8 years ago) the only food at the time that seemed to suit him was the Linda Mc Cartney dog food, but we could only buy it for a year before it disappeared :(  wish Burns had been available when he was young (1980's) :(   We coped by feeding him meat and biscuits and gave him piriton daily to ease the itching.  It was better for him than the years of steroids which is all the vets seemed to come up with :rolleyes:

If you're worried about him losing weight, don't forget if he's not scratching and stressed by the itching then he should start putting on weight nicely ;)  I've also seen many more overweight adult Westies than lean ones ;) so Burns might suit him ;)

Housemites can be controlled by using Indorex in the car and in the house and washing the bedding daily and either keeping it in plastic bags or put in freezer to kill off mites.

A Homeoepath can probably help with some remedies and a programme of inoculations can be made up for your dog however this is time consuming, expensive and only works in around 60% of cases.

Malassezia is a yeast overgrowth, yeast feeds on sugar which is converted from starch therefore you need to think very carefully about his diet as ANY diet that contains grains or any form of carbohydrate can exacerbate the condition.

Therefore you may wish to consider switching to raw which means you do not have to feed any carbs at all.

Supplementation with the following will help:

Vitamin C as it is a natural anti histamine
Vitamin E for skin
Fish Body oil for skin and inflammation
I would also put this dog on a wide spectrum of digestive enzymes with particular emphasis on cellulase in order to help breakdown the carbs if you carry on feeding them.
A prescription diet may alleviate but not totally eradicate some issues, but is very expensive.

HTH