allergies for french bulldogs

[David Larson]

Hello all, I would like to know if there are any owners who have experienced allergies with their frenchies? My Lucy has frequent outbreaks of skin inflammation that my vet and myself think are food allergy related. She has all the classic symptoms, paw licking, scratching, and severe inflammation of the skin in the neck and leg pit(armpit?)areas. The vet has allowed me to give her Benadryl which seems to provide no relief at all. I am in the process of working toward a grain-free diet in order to eliminate that as a cause. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

[sylviakuhlee]

hi david,my name is sylvia and im new to this forum and im not really experienced yet,but i have a frenchie since thanksgiving and i did hours of research online to find the best food for him....
im still switching and trying but i only feed natural food,its expensive,but my puppy is doing great....
so we have this great food store with the best pet food you can get and i started with canidae,innova evo and chicken soup for the dog lovers soul......i love chicken soup the most,when you open the can it smells like home cooked food he he....max doesnt really care he eats everything but so far he is really healthy...
i also give him a tablespoon vitamins everyday,its called "the missing link" a breader recommended it...
what im gonna try next is wellness,its suppose to be good too,so we'll see..
so i dont know if this is gonna help you but good luck and god bless your little frenchie

[Joba]

My vet recently changed us to a prescribed dog food called PRESCRIPTION DIET Z/D ULTRA ALLERGEN FREE. We just started less than a week ago. Our vet said it would take anywhere from 5-8 weeks to notice a change...but I'm seeing it in his leg-pits already. Hopefully it does the job, because JOBA has had the same symptoms :O(
I'll keep your posted if it works.
-Sabrina

[Kabuki1224]

Hello! we totally understand what you are growing through! we have tried a lot as well with kabuki. we started her on dick van patten's natural balance food we get her the duck and potato flavor. it's the allergy formula. and we also give her the duck and potato cookies. we started with science diet but stopped that b/c she would itch a lot. then wellness food helped somewhat. so far this as helped her a lot! good luck!
kabuki

[Joba]

well Bad news for our Joba...the prescription diet the vet put him on is making him VERY itchy. So we have started something different. Nature's Variety http://www.naturesvariety.com/ We can't feed him chicken cause thats what we think he is allergic to. So Joba is enjoying Rabbit and Venison, scratching a lot less, and hopping around at the time he knows he is going to be feed. He eats 4 "medallions" a day. Which might not seem like much when you look at it but it doesn't have all that "crap" that kibbles contains.
Only bad thing in he has not gone "potty" in two days :O(
Any suggestions

[Sophie & Dottie, (caregiver)]

My Sophie had the same as you described for Lucy. My vet put Sophie on the HA diet by Purnia, need a perscription for it. It cleared up all and she will never be off that. She still has some chewing at times, spring and fall and this is due to grass allergies. She takes a shot for it and that works well and clears up until fall. I hope this will help you some as I so hated to see Sophie suffering with those itchy areas.

[Caitlin Green]

Hi there,
I feed my frenchie wellness foods and alternate between duck, lamb, and venison mixed with sweet potato recipes and it's completely calmed her stomach and allergies. She has had one yeast infection on the left fold of her face but wipes/topical anti fungal did the job along with some hypo allergenic baths. My suggestion is switch to a food that doesn't contain wheat, corn or soy and keep her skin clean, dry and invest in some anti fungal wipes.

[Mother of Lexi]

When I first got my Lexi, she scratched herself constantly. Couldn't even walk from itching so much. I learned that her breeder had been bathing their pups with baby shampoo. Sounds okay but defintely NOT. Never, NEVER bathe animals in human shampoo of any kind! I always use a shampoo for dogs that contains OATMEAL because it is soothing to sensitive skin --- trick is to leave it on them for 10 minutes. After doing this twice, Lexi stopped scratching altogether! It was amazing. Glad I tried that before all the other alternatives. I also switched her food to Science Diet puppy small bites (she didn't like Nutro). She likes it and is growing like a weed but I can't say that it has helped her gas-situation at all. I'm thinking about investing in an oxygen mask for myself - with her sleeping right by my bed, the nights are unbearable at times.

[Rhiannon Ott]

I worked for a veterinary dermatologist and have done many many skin tests on dogs and dealt with allergies. If you visit my page and read all my past posts there is tons of information on how to determine what type of allergies your dogs have, they present in different ways. I also have a bunch of links if anyone is interested in reading. Atopica is a good choice for allergies but should be considered after the skin testing- Atopica does have side effects and you should have the blood levels tested every six months to make sure it is not doing any damage to your dogs, same as using the steroid injections that I noticed someone posted about. Atopica is cyclosporine which is actually a human drug used during organ transplants, it suppresses the immune system so that the human body does not reject the new organ- it happens to work with dogs by suppressing the immune system so that the body does not have a reaction to environmental allergies. The intradermal skin testing is the safest route and leaves no side effects at all, you are just injecting the dog with what they are allergic to so that the body no longer over responds to the allergins. Aside from that the steroid injections, Atopica and the serum that you would inject after skin testing will do no good if your dog has a food allergy. You should always rule out food first and you should rule out more than grain. Dogs are allergic to beef, chicken, wheat, dairy, soy and corn so removing the grain does not do much good. I could go on and on after doing it every day but you can read more on my page. Hope it helps!!!! :)

[Trish]

It is very common for French Bulldogs to have food allergies. Some so severe that they can't eat chicken, turkey, duck, beef or salmon or any other kind of fish. A friend of mine has a Frenchie that can only eat kangaroo, rabbit, or eel! A lot of Frenchies do a lot better on raw diets.. like Hare-Today, you can view their web-site at www.hare-today.com. So many dog food companies put so many additives that dogs don't need, and some breeds it doesn't bother but most of the time with Frenchies it does.. they have such a sensitive stomach and are prone to so many different allergies. There is another French Bulldog forum called French Bulldog World that is very helpful.. it has as lot of long time and very knowledgable French Bulldog owners that can help you with pretty much any problem you are having with your French Bulldog and come up with a solution how to fix it.

[Kabuki1224]

hi there, kabuki has awful allergies! same as lucy, outbreaks, paw licking, she turns all pink..we have been feeding her with natural balance allergy formula, and that has definitely decreased her outbreaks, she still licks a lot..the benadryl doesn't really help either, she just gets all sleepy on us so we stopped giving her that.
she has tried many different brands of foods and so far out of all of them we like the natural balance. hope this helps!
buki

[Michele Williams]

My Frenchie, Champ has the same issues with the allergies, but also continuously gets yeast infections on top of the allergies. It has been a struggle over the last 7 months with these. The vet suggested making Champs dog food,. We started with Turkey and Potatoes, the vet gave me a chart that listed other foods that could be added into his diet one at a time, if no allergies than I would keep the new ingredient. I also added Brewers Yeast, Omega 3 and Vitamin E into his diet hoping this would help build up his immunities and help with the constant shedding that was brought on by his allergies and yeast infection. I also bath him 3 times a week with a anti-fungal shampoo. It has been a long road, but overall his skin is improving. He still gets a few itchies from time to time, but the yeast infection is almost totally gone. His next step is allergy testing. When his skin was at its worst the vet did also give him steroid injections, His skin would improve almost over night, but the vet will not do that very often as it is not good for him. I am still reading all I can on this subject to try and discover anything that will help him more, if anyone has any other suggestions or something new or what I am presently doing please let me know.

[Rhiannon Ott]

if you want to rule out a food allergy then try a true hypoallergenic diet with a novel protein source for a food trial. A dog is allergic to food it has previously been exposed to which explains why a dog that eats the same food for five years can all of a sudden become allergic to it. I have been following allergy posts and notice that some people change the foods often or switch on and off but this can lead to your dog becoming allergic to both foods. Try and stick with one. Alot of supplements and fish oils can actually cause problems because fish oils have become so commercialized and are in everything that most dogs are previously exposed to them. Does your dog scoot on his bottom by chance? rub his face? How old is your dog? I will repaste this food trial information I posted last year because it explains a food trail, I am also posting a food article link that you can visit
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1664&arti...

Bottom line is a dog with allergies will never recover and show true relief unless the underlying allergies are treated- not masked. Steroid injections, antibiotics, special shampoos, antihistamines, all these things are not needed if you treat the underlying allergy issues not just look for a quick fix to resolve the allergy symptoms. The allergies themselves need to be treated rather than the symptoms

I worked for a veterinary dermatologist and have alot of experience with allergies and skin testing and so on.
I will start by saying that food allergies can start as early as 6-8 weeks old and any age from there on and there are some signs that it could be food allergies that your dogs are suffering from. Environmental allergies appear between the ages of 1-3 years of age. There are alot of questions that are usually asked to determin between food and environmental such as what age is the dog, does the dog seem affected year round or seasonally, have you moved regions within the last 12 months, does your dogs have contact with other pets through boarding- dogs parks or grooming? Do you have any other pets in the household, what food is your pet eating, what brand of HW preventative, does your dog scoot and so on.
Food allergies can leave signs such as face rubbing, paw licking and scooting. Most people think that it is either anal glands or worms if a dog scoots but it can be a sign of a food allergy because if your dog cannot tolerate it's food it will effect the facial area and cause it to be itchy because the food passes through the mouth and it will also effect the bottom because it passes through that area. Not all dogs have the same symptoms though. Discolored skin can be a sign as well. Reacurring ear infections are a sign of allergies because the ears are just an extension of the skin so until you can control whatever the dog is allergic to you will continue to have ear infections. How many of you keep your dog on antibiotics many times out of the year? Just to find out that they get well for awhile and then start all over again? You are just treating the symptoms of allergies by medicating them not actually treating the underlying alleriges. The easiest and cheapest way to find out the difference between food and environmental is to do a food trial with a TRUE hypoallergenic diet, not ZD and not HA but Royal canins either duck and potato or vegetarian. Reason being is that those two diets do not contain the ingredients to cause a reaction in the dog. Those of you that are on canidae and so on may not have food allergies or your dogs are not allergic to the specific ingredients in that particular food. Your top food allergies are
Chicken
Beef
Wheat
Soy
Corn
Dairy
dogs are typically allergic to ATLEAST two ingredients and some many more. All of the commercial foods carry these ingredients which is why so many people can switch from food to food and not ever see results and then think that the dog does not have any food allergies because they have tried everything. The royal canin does not contain any of these ingredients. The vegetarian is just that vegetarian but it rules everything out- the duck and potato is great and does not contain any of these items either but it does have an alternate protein source which is duck and if you are one of the unlucky ones that has a dog allergic to animal protein than this diet would not work for you. You need to keep the dog on one of these diets for a MINIMUM of 8-12 weeks, that is how long it takes for all the old food to clear out of the dogs system. Make sure not to give any treats either because then you have to start all over. You can however give them sweet potato, baked potato any veggies really other than corn, any fruits that you want as well. Make sure to change their HW preventative too because the popular preventatives contain either beef chicken or pork flavors, switch to either a topical like Revolution or the Advalntage multi or you can have your vet order heartgard non flavored pills during your food trial. If you start to see results than your dog has a food allergy. If you want to find out exactly which food ingredients the dog is allergic to you can add things in only after the food trial. So lets say you see great results and you are on week 10- go ahead and add one ingredient from the allergy list like chicken but it needs to be real chicken and add it to the food they are eating so that you are not changing anything other then adding one thing in. Do this for a period of two weeks. If the dog has no reaction to that chicken go ahead and add one more thing like cheese for another two weeks and then so on. If you see a reaction within that two week period take that item away and continue to give only the royal canin until the dog clears up and then move on to another ingredient.
Environmental are a whole nother topic but food allergies are the easiest to treat so before you waste your money trying all this hollistic stuff and other food sources try to rule out a food allergy, worse case scenario you see no results and you know you have followed the food trial correctly so then you can rule out a food allergy and know that it is environmental. If your dog has problems all year round it would be a food allergy- that is not to say that they do not have some environmental on top of that but environmental are seasonal and the dogs are effected with the seasons.
Hope this can help atleast one person.