When a dog is constantly biting and scratching, most pet owners assume that their pet has become infested with fleas. Pet owners should remember that if their dog has fleas, they will be able to see them. They will also be able to see "flea dirt" in their animal's fur, which is the blood excrement of the flea, and looks like little black specks.
If you can see fleas or flea dirt on your dog, there are many options for flea eradication and prevention.
Once proper steps towards flea eradication have been carried out by the pet owner, and no fleas or flea dirt are visible on the dog, but the animal continues to scratch, the cause of the irritation becomes a mystery.
It is always wise to visit the vet when medical problems in your pet arise, but skin inflammations are often caused by an allergy. If your dog constantly has itchy or inflamed skin, it is likely that it is suffering from a food allergy.
By simply switching the bag of food you feed your dog, itchy, flaky, inflamed skin often disappears.
Cheap, low quality, grocery brand dog foods are usually the culprit when it comes to food allergies in pets. These foods often contain too much grain, such as wheat and corn, which are common allergens. Pet owners should pay attention to the first three ingredients on a bag of dog food to make sure it consists mostly of quality meat proteins, and not just grain fillers.
This is where many pet owners become confused. They have been buying the more expensive, quality foods for years, have never seen a flea, yet their dog is still scratching like crazy.
Feeding the same food to a dog year after year is exactly why allergies develop, especially allergies to meat proteins. If an animal eats the same thing again and again, its system begins to reject those ingredients, because its body has been overexposed to them. A varied diet, just as with people, leads to optimal health in canines.
This may seem contrary to conventional wisdom when it comes to pet foods, as many people promote feeding a dog the same bag of food over the course of their lifetime. The idea of feeding an animal the same thing for its whole life is beneficial from a marketing perspective, not to the overall health of the animal.
There are also some common pet food allergens that cause more problems than others. For dogs, these are beef, dairy, wheat, lamb, chicken, chicken egg, and soy.
There are many "allergy formula" dog foods on the market that do not contain any of these ingredients. These formulas also contain meat proteins that are not commonly used in pet foods, such as duck, venison, fish, and bison. There is little chance of your pet dog having ever been exposed to these meat proteins, so therefor, there is little chance that they will be allergic to them.
Potatoes and peas are often used in allergy formulas to replace corn, wheat, or soy.
There are even vegetarian diets for dogs on the market, but these should be fed only in extreme cases of food allergies, as meat protein is an important part of a canine's diet.
So if your dog can not stop scratching, and you think they might have a food allergy, try switching their diet before giving them another flea dip.
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