# Recommendations for hypoallergenic puppy food



## MSmolinsky (May 15, 2017)

I have a 4 month old Golden who seems to have an allergy. He's itchy all the time. His current food is Nutro Large Breed Puppy Chicken (Dry food). The vet has suggested trying a dog food that is made with fish and potato. I found only one puppy food that fit the bill; Simply Nourish Salmon and Sweet Potato Puppy food (Dry). Does anyone have any experience with this food or suggestions for other high quality foods for my itchy pup?


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## meagan (Nov 7, 2017)

My golden is allergic to everything and we had to move him to different foods until we found the perfect one. He eats Earthborn Holistic Dog food and it has done him wonders!


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## Siandvm (Jun 22, 2016)

The only 2 ways to truly diagnose food allergy is to:

1) cook for them so you know all the ingredients (not an easy thing for the amount of time we are talking about — 8-12 weeks — because it has to be nutritionally balanced, especially so for a growing puppy.)

2) feed a prescription limited ingredient or hydrolyzed protein diet. I know that the Royal Canin Hydrolyzed Protein food is labeled for growth, from personal experience. 

The reason is that there have been studies done showing that over the counter foods which claim to be limited ingredient still have, at an alarming rate, undeclared proteins in them. Think chicken protein in a food which doesn’t declare chicken as an ingredient. 

Now, if you just want to try a different otc food which has different ingredients and see what happens, that’s fine, just know you won’t have diagnosed anything, but you will have solved your problem if it works (unless the food changes its ingredients). 

Also, beware chewable heartworm and flea/tick preventatives. Most are beef flavored and can be enough to trigger a reaction if beef is a problem. I do know that Bravecto is hydrolyzed pork and is what the dermatologist recommended when we did Rayder’s food trial (along with Advantage Multi for heartworm). I had him go back to a beef chewable this month and I think he got itchy again. I will have to keep an eye on that!


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