My dog is currently fed on Fish4dogs, Ive always thought it was a really high quality food and have always been really pleased with how my dogs do on it (solid poos, shiny coats, and they guzzle it down!!)  My 2 year old dog has often been a little bit itchy and scratchy but recently has gotten a little worse (he isn't terrible just scratching more than normal...more of a constant irritation) the vet suggested today that the high protein food could be causing a reaction and suggested 'Hills id'...I made a a slight face as I have never been convinced by Hills and the not so dazzling ingredients (although I don't know much about their 'id' food) She then suggested JWB. Has anyone any other suggestions of food or anything else that could help his general itchyness. He also has salmon oil daily and the vet suggested adding Evening primrose oil to that aswell. She said taking a blood sample probably wouldn't help as it only detects severe allergies.

Feed mine on Skinners Salmon and Rice not because of itcy skin but because of Gluten issue have had very good result shiny coat solid poo's a picture of health, When my dog was first diagnosed was fed Hill ID yuk his coat was very poor and always hungy but havent looked back with this food

I have a very allergic dog too. She is  now on Orijen and I have to say she has never ever been so good at not itching (not even when she was raw fed!). Her coat is so so so glossy and has much less dry skin.

I realise it is expensive but the reduced medicine costs are worth it. She has been on it about 1 month and I can now really see the difference.

I can't recommend it highly enough (they do a fish one if that is what your dog is best on)
http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/dry_dog_food/orijen

I find that any food that has rice in (however good it is) makes my dog itchy (she is allergic to beef, lamb, barley, grass, dandelions, storage mites ... the list goes on)

All the best at getting your dog less itchy

Anna

Orijen has dandelions in it :-P

just a little tip for you, in my experience we have a stafford who has poorly ears and chest, he often gets infections from itching that much, we have found that when we change food his problems clear up however when he's been on it for around 3 months his skin starts over again, so we have to change it again, its not too much of a problem because were wise to this now and therefore dont necesseraly have to spend too much money, just as long as we change his food his ok

really! lol I never noticed. That is quite funny - that was a skin test so perhaps it is just when her skin touches it. I am not sure but she looks brill on it so I am not changing unless she gets bad again

All the best
Anna

That is true with Pesto too. I hope it doesn't happen with Orijen

Anna

Yup :-D I remembered that for some reason and then checked. Allergies are funny things though I think. I have a very allergic dog as well and have been doing a food trial for the past 7 months! A couple of months back I was certain that I'd detected a problem with chicken - tried him again with it for the past 5 days and now he seems fine with it!

do you know what i think one of the main problems are with itchy dogs, ( central heating ) the last few weeks when the weather started breaking my boy seemed fine, no itchy smely ears and his fur started growing back in his neck wrinkles, because we never hardly had the heating on, however since the weather has been chilly over the last week, weve had our heating on and just when we thought he was doing great, his skin started yet again and his fur, well all over the floor, lol

pork i think is another bad one,

Hi shannon

there is no all round "best food" for a dog with allergies or intolerances other than any food which does not contain the ingredient/s to which the dog's system reacts.  If a dog is allergic to chicken then pointless feeding it regardless of "how good the brand" and/or other ingredients, % of this, that and the other.  However successful with dogs A through to W for eg, it could be a major problem for dogs X to Z and if your dog falls into the latter category you're not going to see an improvement :)

Personally I prefer to stick to foods whether dry complete, moist complete, home prepared or raw (or mixture of any/all!) when the diets themselves have *minimal ingredients* - it's so much easier to identify an allergen etc if there are only a few things "in the mix" rather than an ingredient intense diet where any one or many of the parts making up the complete are possible candidates and less easy to remove.

Prescription diets available only through vets are expensive and generally carry a long list to make up the "food friendly" recipe - where some are better than others is that often the most likely ingredients to cause adverse reaction are hydrolised therefore the dog's digestive system fails to recognise something which would otherwise cause a flare up.

Were this my dog I'd change to a different diet entirely with *novel ingredients* (to this specific dog!) and stick with it religiously for several weeks - on the proviso the dog's condition/comfort did not deteriorate.

The fact that your dogs eat a fish based diet and you add further to the fish content by the use of salmon oil could suggest that a change away from fish would be your best initial option :)

It's very much trial and error to find the best food for each dog - one of yours may well be better left on the existing food whereas the other changed completely away from it!

best wishes, Teri