[gidget406]

I recently switched my 6 year old bulldog to natural balance (limited ingredient diet) sweet potato and chicken. It’s been a few months and since then his facial fold has gotten infected, his ears are bothering him, he’s constantly licking his feet and I just noticed that his chin is getting irritated and red. He’s also been eating grass every night consistently for the past week and not throwing up. His poops are regular but it seems like he’s drinking much more water. He just seems like a giant itchy ball of infection and I feel so bad for him. I need advice on what dry food has worked for sensitive dogs with allergies. What brands work? What ingredients should I be looking for? Does he need supplements?

[somebodysme]

I wouldn’t feed sweet potatoes to an allergy dog…after reading Plechner’s articles about dog allergies. It can make things worse. I would get the food you were feeding before and feed that and take him off the NB that is causing so much issues. He will have to have antibiotics if it gets too bad! Those rashes get infected.

If the food you were feeding is not a good quality food, try and find a better quality ingredients but that is similar to your old food. That’s what I would do. There’s nothing worse than allergies in a dog to deal with…it’s very frustrating! But main thing, get him off that NB NOW!

[gidget406]

The food he was on prior to natural balance was even worse. when I read the review on this site, natural balance limited ingredient diet actually scored really well. I’m thinking maybe its the sweet potato he’s specifically having a problem with and maybe I should just try a different flavor with a different main ingredient. What do you think?

[somebodysme]

It’s not really about “scores” on DFA. It’s about what your dog is allergic to! Do you mean he had worse trouble with the other food or do you mean it had a worse score? Like I said, score don’t matter when you are dealing with a health issue. Score be darned is what I’m thinking these days with trying to deal with my little girl’s allergies. If she’d stop chewing her paws, I’d feed a one star at this point. That’s how frustrated I am. She’s on a five star and is worse off now then she was on Purina Pro Plan! GAH!

All I know is you need to immediately get your dog off the NB, not because it’s not a five star food but because YOUR DOG is allergic to it! I can’t tell you what to try from there but right now I have my dog on Natural Balance potato and rabbit….keeping fingers crossed. Poor thing just can’t shake the irritated paws and I can’t figure out what her issues are. She’s has only just started NB a couple days ago.

It really and truly is completely different…one dog to the next. Start out as you have with a LID food and if that doesn’t work, try a different recipe. If your dog had no itching problems on his old food but it’s not a low quality food and you want better, let’s say it was chicken based…well you can guess from that that your dog doesn’t have an issue with chicken and you can try a higher quality chicken based food. Chicken gives you lots and lots of choices!

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