Who knows their dog is allergic to a food item?

Bob,
 
she had probably had potato in the past.  My vet also recommended a grain.  Grain, veggie, meat => all have to have never been eaten before.
 
And, there was a transition time while we used a food that I knew we wouldn't continue with b/c she would most likely become allergic to it as well.  In our case, we chose a kibble with the hydrolyzed protein source and gave probiotics.  Then moved on to the homecooked diet.
 
I think every dog is different in what they are allergic to.  My vet also discounted the blood test.  However, I did do blood testing early on with a different vet, so it will be interesting what I find out after the elimination diet.

Blood tests are accurate enough with environmental allergies to make them worth the money. Blood tests and intradermal testing for food allergies aren't accurate at all. 

TO test for allergies, the Derm. would do what is called a "serum" test..

Bugsy gets hives and throat closing with eggs and to a lesser extent with chicken and turkey.  (in each case he was given roasted pure meat and wound up with hives but not as severe as with eggs which is horrible.   When we were giving him food with eggs he had ear infections (6-8 mos old), anal gland problems, excessive shedding, pooping 4-5 times a day, irritated feet and butt.  oh and the most horrible gas and HUGE amounts of it.  The vet said he'd never seen a pup with so much gas.
He has not needed to have his anal glands expressed since we stopped eggs (about 6 months) when prior to that he needed it done every 3 weeks.  His ears are clear, he hardly sheds and now poops 2-3 times a day.  His feet are less irritated.  And although being a guy he still has gas its not so bad. []

Unfortunately he also appears to have seasonal allergies, running nose, itchy, etc which contributes to his overall situation.

Fortunately he responds to benadryl and we have been able to sort his food allergies out.  When the vet told me that hives were a cardiovascular response I didn't need to figure out what to call his problem we just needed to fix it.

Interestingly he has been an itchy butt licking mess and I am wondering if it is the Christmas tree - I have asthma and have had more difficulty since we put it up.

Regardless I feel bad for him, especially when days like today he obviously has a real itchy butt and there's nothing that's helping.

This is actually a good question.
 
When I had Shadow on Innova, he started having bad sneezing fits. But I did not have him tested for food allergies.
 
To the best of my thinking, he may have been allergic to the Barley, which is a common allergen, but possibly more likely, some ingredient or balance of ingredients may have left him more susceptible to inhalant allergies. That is, the food changed his immune system response. I have given him wheat crackers without a problem. Possibly some of the extra ingredients one finds in Innova either taxed his metabolism and not leaving enough of what his immune system needs, or he was simply sensitive to them and it created sneezing as a symptom.
 

First of all, what they usually try to eliminate in food allergens are the most common ones. The protein source and the carb source. Grains cause many food allergies, so why you vet put your dog on pork and buckwheat is beyond me. The foods that they usually recommend have an unusual protein source and that is why fish and duck and venison and rabbitt are typically used. Potato is used for the carb source to eliminate grain allergies. As I said the easiest way is to start from the bottom up so to speak. Find a food like Sweet Potato and Fish and if problems disappear, then you know it is something else causing the problem. That is an elimination diet that eliminates grains!!.

 
The idea of an elimination diet, as it's been explained to me, is to feed a novel protein and carb.  To my knowledge, Sassy hadn't had pork or buckwheat.  Buckwheat was recommended because it is low-gluten, but there were lots of other things I could  have used that aren't commonly used in dog food.  By keeping it that simple, you can then add one ingredient at a time and look for a reaction.  My lab weighs 75 lbs, so using anything like venison or rabbit for 12 weeks was a bit cost and convenience prohibitive.  My only point was that you could potentially try all the Natural Balance Allergen formulas and still have food related allergies to any one of the other ingredients in there. 

From what I've read at petdiets.com, the actual food allergy is a protein allergy, though what may differ is whether the protein came from a meat or a grain. So, they might not be allergic to a grain but if one of its proteins is presented in a certain amount, it may cause an actual food allergy.
 

We were told by our veterinarian skin doctor that a blood test will tell if the dog has food or environmental allergies. She added very few dogs are allergic to food.  We were told that if they are allergic to food then we would probably need a skin test to figure which food was the culprit.   Ollie was not allergic to food and when given allergen injections he was cured from his problems to dust and grass.
With our experience, I will never believe that blood tests are not good for allergies.
 
But it seems to me when one says they fed (for instance) Eagle Pack Lamb and Rice and the dog had allergies but changing to Canidea Chicken and Oatmeal the allergies went away, does not tell you that he is allergic to 1. Eagle Pack 2. Lamb 3. Rice.   It seems that it could be any of the ingredients in that food. It seems that to be able to say your dog is allergic to CHICKEN,,,chicken in any form would cause problems.   If its an ingredient in a certain food. then its not neccessarily an allergy to chicken. 
I also think that if the dog was allergic to that chicken it would show up right away after giving him chicken.  

   Kelly; my veterinary dermatologist thinks that blood testing for food allergies is unreliable; I know there are labs which claim to have accurate testing for food allergies though. We know Jessie's allergic to chicken and we learned about it through following an elimination diet.  She improved about 50% on the diet, which was enough to assume that part of her problem was related to food allergies. Then, she went through the testing to determine what her other allergies were; they were serious enough to require immunotherapy. After she had received immunotherapy for several weeks and was doing well, we started giving her foods from her old diet one at a time. The first thing we tried was chicken and she started chewing her paws in less than a week.
   My veterinary dermatologist is also an Associate Clinical Professor at Purdue University, and she thinks that food allergies are more common than what you generally read about, which is that less than 10% of dogs with allergies have food allergies. She sees quite a few dogs much of the year; I know because I have to make an appointment for rechecks a month or more in advance, so there must be a good reason for her to feel this way. By the way, I noticed that Jessie's ears have been bothering her the last few days and I figured out why; my son has been feeding her quite a few treats with chicken liver which I had purchased by accident and hadn't gotten rid of; [] they're gone now.

Grains cause many food allergies, so why you vet put your dog on pork and buckwheat is beyond me

 
  Because her dog had never had buckwheat before; most of the time dogs develop an allergy to a food they've eaten for a while.

Janice,,,did your doctor say that blood testing for food was unreliable to tell what foods were allergy problems or that blood testing wasnsn't reliable to tell if they were allergic to food?
I ask this since our skin doctor told us that blood testing would tell IF there was an allergy to food but not good to tell which food it was.
She also told us it was a lot more time consuming and expensive to get skin tested and since she felt there are not a lot of dogs that had food allergies that blood testing is the best lace to start.
 
I think the worst part about this whole conversation (which I know,,,is getting off topic) is WHY are these dogs having allergy problems?  Because their immunse system is compromised. Why???   Vaccinations?   Preventatives??   I believe that is true.

kpwlee,
 
Do you have any theories on how food sensitivites worsen anal gland problems?  The last time I was at the specialist, she said "so, they've always had anal gland problems" - like there was more to the story / and it being related to food issues as we were discussing.  However, there wasn't enough time for us to discuss this particular issue.   So, I've been wondering about that.

Not sure how or if food sensitivities causes or worsens anal glad problems,,but if you feed food that doesn't have enough fiber in it, and your dog has really soft stools,,sometimes those dogs have more anal gland problems. It seems they need nice firm stools to help the dog express his own anal glands as the stool is passing thru.

when I was researching anal gland problems & subsequently food allergy problems I read in several places that for some dogs anal gland problems are worsened by food allergies.
Bugsy is my first dog as an adult and honestly I didn't know dogs could have allergies [sm=blush.gif] or anal gland problems - 95% of my research has been online.
I can say without hesitation that his ear and anal gland problems cleared almost completely upon the removal of egg ( in almost all high quality foods [sm=wink3.gif] )
We still battle the environmental allergens and mostly win. He still has bad days and we are still refining his feeding

edit for: curiously Bugsy has never had too soft of stool or diahrea (sp?) he did use to go 4-5 times a day until the removal of egg now its 2x (sometimes 3)  day

kpwlee,

Do you have any theories on how food sensitivites worsen anal gland problems? The last time I was at the specialist, she said "so, they've always had anal gland problems" - like there was more to the story / and it being related to food issues as we were discussing. However, there wasn't enough time for us to discuss this particular issue. So, I've been wondering about that

 
  I'm not kpwlee but my vet explained that allergies ( either food or environmental) irritate the walls of the ducts that go from the anal glands to the anus, causing them to swell and thus making it more difficult for the fluid to drain.  That causes fluid to accumulate in the glands and cause impactation.