Ingredients most likely to cause allergic reaction in your dog
When you wrestle, romp, chase and play with a hundred dogs a day you learn a lot about the furry kids.
When you feed that many pups you tend to notice a lot as well. We see dogs with allergies from wheat to soy to egg and everything in-between.
Dogster.com’s Vet Blog by Dr. Eric Barchas, DVM has a great article on the ingredients most likely to cause an allergic reaction:
Which Ingredients are Most Likely to Cause Food Allergies in Dogs and Cats?
Pet food discussions seem uniquely capable of getting readers of this blog excited. Let’s shake things up.
Recently a reader brought up a question in the discussion of corn as a pet food ingredient. The reader was curious about the allergenic effects of corn. Is corn likely to cause allergic reactions in dogs and cats?
Cats and dogs with food allergies most commonly suffer from skin and ear problems. Gastrointestinal upset also is possible.
Numerous studies have been performed to assess the most highly allergenic food ingredients. A paper published in the September, 2002 issue of Advances in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery attempted to tabulate the results of 22 different studies into a cohesive set of data. This “study of studies” has the advantage of large sample sizes that are likely to be statistically significant. It has the disadvantage of being authored by Philip Roudebush of the Hill’s Science and Technology Center. Although I can’t see any evidence of data twisting in the paper, readers should be aware that the data were tabulated by a person employed by a pet food manufacturer. Consume as many grains of salt as you desire while reading the results.
The leading food allergens in dogs as determined by the study of studies are listed below. Numbers in parentheses indicate percent of food allergy cases caused by each ingredient. They do not indicate the likelihood that a pet will suffer an allergic reaction after consuming the ingredient.
- Beef (34%)
- Dairy (20%)
- Chicken (20%)
- Wheat (16%)
- Egg (7%)
- Lamb (5%)
- Soy (5%)
- Corn (3%)
- Pork (2%)
- Rice (2%)
- Fish (1%)
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Tags: Dog Health
