# Raw Diet & Allergies



## missmarstar (Jul 22, 2007)

I'll share my experiences..

My dog Sam had really bad allergies since I got him as a little puppy. When he eats anything with corn or wheat, he throws up within 30 minutes without fail. The allergies are so severe that he ate THREE pieces of popcorn and threw up from that. He did OK on kibbles with other grains like rice or oats.. no throwing up, but he was definitely VERY itchy all the time. I bathed him with soothing shampoos, didn't do anything.. his skin was always red and itchy. 

I eventually switched him to a grain free fish based kibble.. hoping maybe it was a combination of the protein source AND the grains that was making him itch. He still itched.. but it was a lot better. But by this time, I was spending $60 for a bag of kibble and I was just not satisfied. I thought if I had to be spending all that $$, I wanted it to be atleast a GREAT kibble for him that worked for him wonderfully.. and it just didn't. 

That's when I made the switch to a raw diet. At first I had planned to do a 50/50 diet.. with raw in the mornings and kibble for dinner. But after a week with the raw in his diet, I noticed dramatic improvements in him.. and switched him 100% to raw after that. 

He has done wonderfully on a raw diet. Itchy skin is GONE. His stools are perfectly formed. He's never had any ear infections or issues, even on kibble.. but that's remained great. And his teeth are sparkly white and clean. 

For us, the raw diet eliminated ALL his allergy issues, definitely. He was a completely different dog once we went raw.

As for my 2nd dog Dillon.. he was rescued and came to me with one ear disgustingly infected and really dirty teeth/stinky breath and 15 lbs overweight. I switched him to raw immediately, and within a few weeks, he too was a different dog. Clean ears, clean teeth, and (with the help of Sam chasing him around the backyard) he dropped that excess weight almost immediately.

For us, the raw diet worked wonders. I can't say whether that would be the case for every dog.. but I'm just glad I found something finally that works for mine.


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## Goldilocks (Jun 3, 2007)

It's impossible to say if a raw diet would work to cure allergies for all dogs but like Marlene, I've had a very positive experience feeding Pippa raw food. I have also switched a couple times back and forth between raw & kibble only to go back to raw when the ear infections, itchies, body odour,bad breath and yeast returned with kibble. I know my dog needs a home made or raw diet for her to be healthy. However, my brother's Golden does just fine on a kibble that Pippa couldn't tolerate.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

If your raw diet still had ingredients in it that your dog was allergic to, then it wouldn't stop the allergies. Same thing if allergies were caused by the environment and not food.

One of the reasons I like feeding raw is that I know exactly what I am feeding my dogs. One of my dogs has a lot of allergies and sometimes ingredients on a bag of kibble can be sneaky. For example, one brand of food I had considered feeding listed "natural flavoring" as an ingredient. Luckily, I went to the website, where I found out that the natural flavoring was pork, one of the items my dog is allergic to.


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## missmarstar (Jul 22, 2007)

Loisiana said:


> If your raw diet still had ingredients in it that your dog was allergic to, then it wouldn't stop the allergies. Same thing if allergies were caused by the environment and not food.



This is not _necessarily_ true. Several raw feeders I have spoken to have told me that they had allergy testing done on their dogs to find they were allergic to chicken, just as an example, when their dog was fed a chicken based kibble diet. Yet when they switched to raw, and slowly reintroduced chicken to the diet, the dog did not show allergy symptoms to it. 

The general thought behind it is the protein is altered when it's cooked in the kibble making process to something the dog has a reaction to, but when raw the dog does fine with it. 

I have heard this about several different protein sources. Of course, there are dogs that still have allergies to particular meats and can't tolerate them in kibble or raw. Just depends!


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Interesting to know, I'd never heard anyone say that. 
I don't know if I want to risk trying it to find out if it works for my dog though, I've worked to hard to get him hot spot free!


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## missmarstar (Jul 22, 2007)

Loisiana said:


> Interesting to know, I'd never heard anyone say that.
> I don't know if I want to risk trying it to find out if it works for my dog though, I've worked to hard to get him hot spot free!



LOL I probably wouldn't be trying that either.. but just something interesting to throw out there


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## Goldilocks (Jun 3, 2007)

missmarstar said:


> This is not _necessarily_ true. Several raw feeders I have spoken to have told me that they had allergy testing done on their dogs to find they were allergic to chicken, just as an example, when their dog was fed a chicken based kibble diet. Yet when they switched to raw, and slowly reintroduced chicken to the diet, the dog did not show allergy symptoms to it.
> 
> The general thought behind it is the protein is altered when it's cooked in the kibble making process to something the dog has a reaction to, but when raw the dog does fine with it.
> 
> I have heard this about several different protein sources. Of course, there are dogs that still have allergies to particular meats and can't tolerate them in kibble or raw. Just depends!


This has been my experience as well. Pippa could never handle grain in kibble but if I cook oatmeal or millet to add to her diet she is just fine - no allergy. It's like the processing alters what the food is. She does not seem to have any type of allergies on raw food but on kibble everything seemed to bother her.


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