Shihtzu nutrition

Question
Still searching for the right diet... two of our four dogs are itching to the point where we are using benadryl! We thought there might be dry skin due to a cold snap. Maybe there's something missing from, or in, their diet that is causing problems? We have one girls that is itching much of the night! We rotate kibbles using Evo, Wellnes, California Natural. We supplement with Primal Raw Food, Missing Link, high EPA fish oil, enzymes and probiotics. What is going wrong? We're tempted to stop the above and start cooking for our dogs! Help!

Answer
Hi Rick,

It seems to me you are using a lot of high quality products, but the sheer amount of ingredients in all of this may be part of the problem. With allergic dogs, generally speaking less is more. I start most allergic dogs on a limited ingredient diet with minimal supplementation.  I would recommend a limited ingredient, novel protein food such as Natural Balance (the sensitive formulas) and stop all the extras for now. Give them a few weeks and see if they improve. Conversely, though, why NOT a home made diet? you are spending a lot of money and not seeing results - having them on a well formulated diet specific to their issues would ultimately cost less and help more, IMO.

Can't help you iwth the work though - it IS a lot more time consuming than commercial!

Sorry to hear you are struggling with this. It can really be frustrating, but I'm recommending limiting ingredients. No Missing Link, no rotated foods, no extras. Just a sensitive-formula dry food from a premium company like Natural Balance. Love to hear how that goes for you.
All the best, Catherine