[Aburnham93]

Hello!
My best friend recently had an allergy test done on her almost two year old Black Mouth Curr, the results came back with 21 allergies. 8 of those allergies are beef, rice, sweet potatoes, kelp, brewers yeast, eggs, venison and corn. We have been searching the internet looking for dog foods that do not contain these and have sadly have had no luck. Her vet was not very much help at all and we’re not sure what to do. She has even considered making her own dog food however most recipes we come across have these ingredients as well.
Thank you in advanced!

 

[storyist]

Your friend has my sympathy. I have the same kind of problem with one of my Rottweiler girls. She was having constant hot spots. I'd barely get one starting to clear up before another would pop up. Sometimes she'd have two at once. A friend urged me to do allergy testing, and when I did, the results were discouraging. She has a lot of environmental allergies I can't do much about, but also quite a list of food allergies.

It's always been my impression from forums, dog food blogs and books that dogs usually have problems with meat proteins, and owners have to feed exotic meats. For Story, however, of the tested meats, only venison showed a problem. Pretty much everything else they put in dog food is a problem. The standard wheat, corn, and rice and also the currently popular potatoes, peas, etc.

I could only find one limited ingredient kibble that was a possibility and even it included an ingredient on her list - alfalfa. Figuring alfalfa is a supplement and would only be present in very small quantities, I tried it, and it did make a big difference, but Story's coat, which was never as nice as I wanted, really turned dry and dull.

In the end I turned to raw feeding. You say recipes have ingredients your friend's dog is allergic to. I never used recipes. I followed the principles of raw feeding except I never fed bones as some do. I bought "grinds" which include ground bone in the proper percentage.

Sure enough that stopped the hot spots. Instead of one every couple of weeks, she now gets one or two a year. She had never had an ear infection, but her ears were always gunky, and they cleared up. Her eyes ran so much she had tracks down her face all the time, and while she still has runny eyes, they're nothing like that bad now. I can't say her coat turned lovely and shiny with raw diet, but when I tried phytoplankton, it was the first supplement I ever saw make a big difference in a short time. Her coat is now as shiny as I could want.

So your friend may find a limited ingredient kibble that will do the trick, but she may find herself in my position needing to feed a raw diet. Good luck to her.

 

[parus]

A few of the ToTW formulations look like they might fit your requirements, if I'm reading the ingredients lists correctly:

Taste of the Wild PREY Limited Ingredient Pet Food

Taste of the Wild PREY limited ingredient diets – a simplified approach to pet food based on the animal’s native diet.

www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com

 

[Aburnham93]

A few of the ToTW formulations look like they might fit your requirements, if I'm reading the ingredients lists correctly:

Taste of the Wild PREY Limited Ingredient Pet Food

Taste of the Wild PREY limited ingredient diets – a simplified approach to pet food based on the animal’s native diet.

www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com

Thank you SO much! This is perfect, she really wanted something that wasn’t grain free & didn’t have those ingredients she can’t have. This is the only one that has met that criteria.

 

[LeoRose]

A lot of the allergy testing done via saliva and/or hair can be pretty inaccurate. The gold standard for detecting food allergies is still a strict elimination diet. And I mean strict. As in the dog gets only the prescribed foods and absolutely nothing else while the feeding trial is going on.

In an elimination diet, the dog is put on either a very restricted single protein / single carbohydrate diet or a hydrolyzed protein food for six weeks or until signs of allergic reactions are gone. Then, different proteins and carbohydrates are introduced one at a time and the dog is observed for signs of an adverse reaction. If the newly introduced food is tolerated, then another is introduced. And so on and so on.

Also, if your friend hasn't had it done, they should request a full thyroid panel be sent to an outside lab (Michigan State University is considered the best, from what I've heard) to test for T3, T4, Free T3, Free T4, TSH, and TgAA.