[Messykat]

Hi! I had posted this in the new owner section and it appears the people over here might be more able to help me.

I have an 1 year old Maltese who is showing signs of food allergy (itching and occasional diarrhea). My vet agrees with me that it makes sense to try a hypoallergenic diet before exploring separate causes of these symptoms. Otherwise, pup is fine.

I'll be using Natural Balance Venison and Sweet Potato.

But here's my question. Vet is on vacation this week and I forgot to ask him whether this should be done gradually or all at once. I'm getting mixed answers on this from really reliable sources - ie, the awesome vet tech at the office who is almost done with vet school says gradual, but my neighbor who has had maltese all his life and gone through this several times says his vets always say to make the change all at once. I'm so confused!!

Any help would be appreciated. I found some good online sources and they all say the same thing about the diet itself, but no one mentions this aspect of it.

[RawFedDogs]

Originally Posted by Messykat

the awesome vet tech at the office who is almost done with vet school says gradual, but my neighbor who has had maltese all his life and gone through this several times says his vets always say to make the change all at once. I'm so confused!!

I guess it depends on your personality. If you take chances in life and you want to change all at once, then do so. If you are conservative and careful in life, take the slow route. It won't kill your dog to do either.

The ONLY true hypoallergentic diet is a prey model raw diet. All kibbles have too many ingredients and chemicals to ever determine which one is actually causing the allergic reaction. You might as well just pick one then another then another and so on until you find one your dog will tolerate.

With a prey model raw diet you can feed only one ingredient and pretty quickly find out what if anything your dog is allergic to. Very few dogs are actually allergic to raw meat. For example, it's quite common for a dog to be allergic to chicken in kibble but not be allergic to raw chicken. A dog being allergic to meat would be like a cow being allergic to grass.

[Criosphynx]

Everyone always puts emphasis on GRADUAL changes in food. Thats what most people recomend.

Personally i've changed food many times cold turkey and NEVER had a dog have gas, the runs or vomit.


It might be different tho if a dog has been on one diet for years and year tho.

the cats on the other hand, you look at the food wrong they yack it up.

[Pasofino]

I also change foods whenever , not doing it slowly, but then, most of the food is basically the same, no preservatives, no corn, soy, etc blah blah blah...

If you keep the same quality of food, then changing quickly is not as much of an issue.

If you are feeding a low quality food, then it would be hard to go to a higher quality food.....and vice versa.

If you do not want to go raw, then try California Natural, it has only 3 ingredients, Lamb rice and oil...it can help a dog that has food allergies, as long as the allergy is not one of those three !

[rosemaryninja]

I agree with RawFedDogs on this one, a raw diet is a great way to determine what your dog is allergic to. Spunky had terrible skin allergies and I switched her on to raw food. With a raw diet, it's easy to identify what the allergen is by eliminating protein sources. You know exactly what goes into their food and what doesn't. In about two weeks of feeding raw we were able to see that she was allergic to grains and in a month her allergies were completely gone. It saved me the time and trouble of trying different foods to see what worked. Just my two cents.

Whether you make the change gradually or suddenly is largely up to you and your dog. If your dog has a naturally weak stomach, then I would change gradually, just to make it gentler on his digestive system. If your dog is like mine and has an iron-clad stomach, then change straightaway. Treat the new food like you would any new brand of kibble that you're switching to, whether it's hypoallergenic or not.

[Messykat]

Thanks everyone. I see there's not a real consensus, which is fine. I ended up compromising - sort of a turbo version of the gradual one! He does have an iron stomach (he's vomited once the whole time I've had him, including eating things I can't even post here...lol) so I'm not worried about that part. It's going to be about a 3-4 day process. So far he's doing great.

I'm happy with the commercial one I picked though. I talked to lots of people, including the vet tech who gave it her stamp of approval and said it's the only she's seen that didn't have "hidden' protein in it like beef broth or something. So I'm thinking the ID process for the allergens will be simple once I start adding new stuff. The one common demoninator in her foods, however, has been wheat, which will obviously be avoided or tested last!