My favorite limited ingredient food is Nature’s Variety Instinct LID. As much as I like Wellness products and would recommend them, I cannot use their Simple diets because they all contain problem ingredients for my pup with intolerances.
Switching to a LID would certainly narrow the list of potential problem ingredients, but let’s hypothetically say that peas are the offending ingredient, and if that’s the case, your pup continues to react if you feed a LID food that contains them, like NVI LID. You must first identify the problem ingredient/s; and while eliminating certain ingredients, such as grains or chicken, might be a start, it may not be the answer at all. The only way to truly know is to do an elimination diet with the help of your vet.
There’s also a great article about conducting an elimination diet in the March, 2015 issue of The Whole Dog Journal, is you’re a subscriber.
I’ve been doing what I call a modified “elimination diet” of sorts for over 2-1/2 years with my Golden who’ll be 3 in May. I finally found a food that worked for him after identifying one of his problem ingredients, fish. After I found some fish free foods, I continued to closely monitor the ingredients in the foods that I fed him and through a process of elimination (many foods, lots of notes and money), I identified several more ingredients (none of which are animal proteins and only one of which is a true grain) that he also reacted to.
Mine reacts like yours with the ear infection to some of his problem ingredients. It’s so important to identify the ingredients that he’s reacting to as the inflammation that presents in his ear is happening elsewhere where you can’t physically see it. The more the ear reacts, the more damage that’s done to the ear canal and that’s a recipe for disaster.
I’ve found a few foods with varying proteins and binders that my dog with intolerances can eat, but am always trying new foods because I believe strongly in a rotational diet.
It’s frustrating and time consuming, but keep good notes, be diligent and persevere!
