Prescription diets are extremely useful in many different circumstances because prescription diets treat or manage specific conditions. So if you're dog has an underlying joint disease, you can use prescription joint diets to help manage that. Suppose your dog has urinary problems or a history of bladder stones, which are actually fairly common in dogs. In that case, there are prescription urinary diets that will help reduce the risk of recurrence once the underlying issue is addressed.

Those are just two of many examples where prescription nutrition can be very valuable. Because they are prescription diets, they have a particular condition that they're treating. They have to be prescribed by a veterinarian to ensure that it is the appropriate diet for that pet. My personal approach in the way I practice is to rely heavily on therapeutic diets whenever possible because if we can manage or treat disease through nutrition, it's always a good starting point.

No, it's not. The big difference is that wet food has a massive amount of water content. Usually, about 75 to 80% of the food in the can is water, which certainly has its benefits in some circumstances, like if you have a dog that is just not a big drinker and tends to get dehydrated if we aren't careful. Adding some wet food to the diet can be helpful because it adds water content. Also, with certain chronic conditions like kidney disease, having added water content can benefit dogs who can't maintain hydration status because of underlying disease. You can obtain adequate nutrition with dry or canned food or a combination of the two.

That's a good question. This question is becoming more and more popular. The thing to understand about dogs is they are what's called omnivores, meaning that they can live on both a meat and a vegetarian diet, similar to people. An important distinction is that cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they have to eat meat. They must have a meat-based diet because their protein requirements are so high. And so the answer is yes, you could feed your dog a vegan diet, whereas the answer for cats would be a hard no.

To elaborate on vegan diets for dogs, even though I say yes, they can, I would add that it would be particularly challenging. I would suggest that anybody interested in doing that, and it can be done, work with a veterinary nutritionist who can help formulate homemade vegan diets that meet all nutritional requirements. That's the big thing. Anytime we do home-cooked feeding, particularly something as specific as a vegan diet, there are a lot of opportunities for malnutrition that can harm your pet in the long run. So if you want to do that, please make sure you work with a board-certified veterinary nutritionist.

I'm not a human doctor, but the biggest difference is that when we think of allergies in humans, we think of sinus problems and pollens, among other things that lead to this issue. Dogs have those same issues, but people tend to respond to similar allergens that dogs do with sinus problems, whereas dogs primarily respond with skin problems. So I think that's the big distinguishing factor. It's the same thing with food allergies. Humans can also respond to food allergies with skin issues, but that's more commonly the primary presentation of food allergies in dogs.

Absolutely. That is actually the most common allergy we see when dealing with skin allergies in dogs. Humans would typically react to various things in the environment, such as pollen, and dogs would as well. Their immune systems react by causing inflammation in the skin. That disruption of the skin barrier leads to secondary infections in most cases.

We see seasonal allergies a lot. The complicating thing is that it'll just be seasonal in a lot of dogs because they're allergic to certain things determined by the season. But just because your dog has issues multiple times throughout the year or sometimes year-round doesn't mean that it's not "seasonal." By "seasonal," we mean environmental allergies. Because some dogs are allergic to so many things and the consequences are so severe, they will still have problems throughout the year, not just in the spring or summer. So it's not as clear-cut in that regard.

This is really important because I see this a lot with clients. They think their dog might have food allergies, and they use Dr. Google to try to discern what's going on. They then start switching their dog's food to various over-the-counter types of foods. That can potentially cause more problems in the long run because it exposes them to different proteins, which makes it harder to discern what the issue is.

The right way to identify a true food allergy, which is common in dogs, is to do what's called an elimination diet. That can be done in two different ways. The first is with a hydro protein diet, a prescription diet specifically created with the protein molecules broken into smaller pieces. That's what they mean by hydrolyzed. The pieces of the protein kind of go under the immune system's radar. The hope is that the immune system doesn't recognize them as foreign proteins leading it to respond negatively. This is the most common type of food trial we do because those foods are the most consistently readily available, and they tend to work really well.

The other type of food trial that can be done is called a novel protein food trial, which entails giving a protein that the dog has never been exposed to before. This can be challenging, and we'll have to make a thorough diet history. 10 years ago, people used kangaroo meat for this trial. I don't think it's used as much anymore because of the supply issue, but that would be a protein that dogs have never been exposed to before.

So we put them on a certain main protein to see if we can get the immune system not to respond to it. Both food trials are trying to find out what the immune system will be happy with. Other critical things to consider before you go with any one of these routes include that it is ideal if these are prescription-level diets. Because they are formulated specifically for this purpose, they undergo quality control to minimize or eliminate cross-contamination. This can really only be guaranteed on a prescription level. So prescription diets are definitely the best way to go when we're working through a food allergy. The other two big considerations are firstly making sure your pet ingests no other food when they're in the trial period, which typically lasts for eight to twelve weeks. Ensure they eat nothing but the specialized diet, no food dropping on the floor, no human food, and no eating other dogs' food. Just the specialized diet food, so that we can eliminate everything else.

At the end of that food trial of eight to twelve weeks, we reintroduce the old food for over a week in duration, although we don't always do this. This is the best way to definitively diagnose a food allergy. If the dog has a significant food allergy and has been doing much better on the new food, they will start responding negatively when the old would is reintroduced. That's how you definitively diagnose a dog with a food allergy. It's simple, but there are steps you have to follow in order to do it adequately, which can sometimes be a challenge.

Contact allergies are things that a dog comes into contact with within the environment that triggers a certain reaction. When some dogs come in contact with particular things, it causes a certain type of allergic reaction that leads to hives, facial swelling, sometimes vomiting and diarrhea, or even in, in severe cases, collapse. It can be really dangerous. That's one class of allergies. Another type of contact allergy won't cause such severe hypersensitivity, but it can cause the immune system to respond abnormally, leading to inflammation and secondary infection. That type of allergy is what we typically see in allergic dogs.

We mentioned itching being the most common thing we see. When we are looking for allergies in dogs at the hospital, we check for any discharge in the ear. That's a common occurrence, and it often means that there is inflammation in the ear because inflammation causes the glandular cells to produce more discharge. So if your dog's got a lot of junk in their ears, typically, that's an indication of inflammation. They would be scratching their ears and shaking their heads most of the time, but not always. So that's what we're looking for. We'll also look for any odor to the skin. Sometimes dogs have what's called seborrheic skin, which is an oily, unpleasant coat that is often associated with allergies. Other signs include skin lesions, hair loss, thickened skin, and darker skin, referred to as lichenified skin. In conclusion, we always look for an indication of unhealthy skin because it is almost always caused by underlying allergies.

Extremely common. Especially here in Fort Worth, Texas, we see allergies on a daily basis. It is definitely one of the top three things that we come across, and in particular seasons, it is the number one thing we encounter. So it is widespread in dogs.

The first major thing we see with allergies in dogs is skin problems or itching. Itching is by far the most common symptom. Itching often looks intuitive in dogs. When a dog licks their paws, people will often think they're just cleaning its paws or it's a behavioral action. This may be the case, but more often, they're licking their paws because they're itchy, and they don't have the dexterity to scratch their hand like you and I would, so they lick or bite at their paw instead. Biting, licking, scratching their sides and ears, shaking their head, and rolling their back on the ground a lot are all things we see in dogs. It means they are itchy, and an itchy dog generally has skin allergies. Other things we might see are active skin lesions. This may include redness, red circles on the skin with crusts around them, hair loss, and swollen and red ears. In addition to that, allergies can sometimes manifest in GI problems. So if your dog is chronically vomiting or has diarrhea, a food allergy may be the cause.