Hello and welcome back to the Live Life Off Leash blog!
We talk about nutrition a lot here. The reason we do is simply because it’s so important! Our pets don’t get to choose what we feed them so it’s up to us to make the best decisions we can for them. Something that is often overlooked when doing research for pet food is the ingredients that may cause inflammation and allergies.
A tell tale sign of allergies in our pets is itchy paws. Dogs will generally lick their paws on occasion as an act of cleaning, but dogs do not generally mess with their feet often. If you have been noticing excessive licking, or even nibbling/chewing of their feet more than likely they have allergies. Pet allergies can manifest themselves similarly to hives or eczema in people and be itchy. Because of their skin tone and fur, we don’t really see red splotches on their feet but that doesn’t mean they are not itchy! If a dog is excessively messing with their paws you can be pretty sure they are having a reaction to something and more than likely it’s their food.
Some common ingredients that can cause pet allergies are: Corn, wheat, Soy (or gluten), poor quality proteins, and any number of dyes and fillers. Poor quality dog foods are loaded with these things. Sometimes dogs can have more complex allergies to specific kinds of animal proteins like chicken and beef, but those are generally not the main cause. Often it’s a trial and error approach to see what your pet may be allergic to. Many times a limited ingredient diet is a good place to start. Then you can begin to add things back slowly and see if it changes things.
Making a switch to a high quality, limited ingredient dog food, like pawTree, is often the best place to start when you notice your dog may be having symptoms of allergies. Having itchy paws is by no means any fun for your dog, so helping them to not have those allergic reactions is a big deal. You wouldn’t want to live with itchy skin and neither do they. So if you notice your dog licking and chewing on his feet, consider a switch to ease the allergies.
If you have questions regarding nutrition or allergies, please contact us. We would love to chat about your pet’s nutritional health and about what pawTree can offer your pet. We want to see every pet and their pet parent fit, healthy from the inside out, and Living Life off Leash!
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