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Ok so a bit of history to start.
As some of you may know Oreo has and is suffering with what we believe to be an allergy problem. As a result she's been chewing her back paws to the extent that the black pads have been almost chewed off.
We've been to two different vets and had various tests done, including skin scrapes. We've tried various food (both wet and dry food) trials with varying results.
The last few months have been better, as we have changed her to a chappie wet food diet only, and have used a buster collar for times when we arn't there. This has helped the paws to heal but also breaks the habbit of the chewing.
Her back paws I am glad to say are much much better and are looking the best they have done since we had her a year ago. She even has fur growing out of them again! She still tries to chew them occationally and we attempted to leave her 30 mins on her own without a collar, but sadly, she went back to chewing.
We decided against having the traditional allergy tests, where they inject lots of different allergens in small dose's to see what (if any) causes a reaction. We decided this simply because of the low sucess rate it has and the fact that Oreo has been prodded and poked enough during the last few months.
Last month we took Oreo to the groomer and she recommended a hollistic vet who is based down south, who had developed a 'new technique' using nothing but a sample of hair. I was a bit negative about it all and very skeptical, however I thought at £30 it was worth a go.
They asked a few questions like her age, weight and breed and I subbmitted a hair sample via post about three weeks ago.
Yesterday I got the results, some of which I expected and some which make sence and other that are plain daft.
- Environmental allergies are: Petrol, Silicon (she has a lot of plastic rubber toys so could possibly contain silicon) and Bird danders (basically the dead skin of birds) which makes sence because we have two budgies.
- Food Allergies are: Strawberries, apricots, tangerines, grapefruit, courgette, yellow pepers, yams and nuts (none of which she has). She is also showing signs of allergies to Lobster (she only has that on a Friday hehe!), salmon, mackerel, tuna, LAMB and Gluten.
Now gluten makes a lot of sence as ALL the food we have tried has contained either rice or wheat and the food she is on now (chappie) contains fish. Her previous vet food contained LAMB.
So, the next step is to try and cut out the above as much as possible and then after a while re-introduce one by one to see what the results are.
The birds I think are going to have to go upstairs into the spare room, which I don't want to do but if it helps then so be it. If it makes no difference i can reintroduce them back downstairs.
The vet has provided a 'herbal' remedy to give her twice a day but I am a bit reluctant to give it her especially as I don't know what's in it.
We will start to switch her over to a gluten free wet food (butchers tripe seems the only one at the minute)soon, to see if that helps.
Hopefully, the above holds some answers and thought I would share it for those who may want to know more for their own dog.
If anyone is interested in the contact details for this vet please feel free to PM me and I will provide the details.
I will keep you posted how I get on!
As some of you may know Oreo has and is suffering with what we believe to be an allergy problem. As a result she's been chewing her back paws to the extent that the black pads have been almost chewed off.
We've been to two different vets and had various tests done, including skin scrapes. We've tried various food (both wet and dry food) trials with varying results.
The last few months have been better, as we have changed her to a chappie wet food diet only, and have used a buster collar for times when we arn't there. This has helped the paws to heal but also breaks the habbit of the chewing.
Her back paws I am glad to say are much much better and are looking the best they have done since we had her a year ago. She even has fur growing out of them again! She still tries to chew them occationally and we attempted to leave her 30 mins on her own without a collar, but sadly, she went back to chewing.
We decided against having the traditional allergy tests, where they inject lots of different allergens in small dose's to see what (if any) causes a reaction. We decided this simply because of the low sucess rate it has and the fact that Oreo has been prodded and poked enough during the last few months.
Last month we took Oreo to the groomer and she recommended a hollistic vet who is based down south, who had developed a 'new technique' using nothing but a sample of hair. I was a bit negative about it all and very skeptical, however I thought at £30 it was worth a go.
They asked a few questions like her age, weight and breed and I subbmitted a hair sample via post about three weeks ago.
Yesterday I got the results, some of which I expected and some which make sence and other that are plain daft.
- Environmental allergies are: Petrol, Silicon (she has a lot of plastic rubber toys so could possibly contain silicon) and Bird danders (basically the dead skin of birds) which makes sence because we have two budgies.
- Food Allergies are: Strawberries, apricots, tangerines, grapefruit, courgette, yellow pepers, yams and nuts (none of which she has). She is also showing signs of allergies to Lobster (she only has that on a Friday hehe!), salmon, mackerel, tuna, LAMB and Gluten.
Now gluten makes a lot of sence as ALL the food we have tried has contained either rice or wheat and the food she is on now (chappie) contains fish. Her previous vet food contained LAMB.
So, the next step is to try and cut out the above as much as possible and then after a while re-introduce one by one to see what the results are.
The birds I think are going to have to go upstairs into the spare room, which I don't want to do but if it helps then so be it. If it makes no difference i can reintroduce them back downstairs.
The vet has provided a 'herbal' remedy to give her twice a day but I am a bit reluctant to give it her especially as I don't know what's in it.
We will start to switch her over to a gluten free wet food (butchers tripe seems the only one at the minute)soon, to see if that helps.
Hopefully, the above holds some answers and thought I would share it for those who may want to know more for their own dog.
If anyone is interested in the contact details for this vet please feel free to PM me and I will provide the details.
I will keep you posted how I get on!
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