What to Put on Your Homemade Hypoallergenic Dog Food

If your dog is experiencing a variety of symptoms like dry skin, frequent scratching, shedding, frequent vomiting and asthma, he may be experiencing food allergy, and you may need homemade hypoallergenic dog food. Different breeds of dogs have varied allergic reactions to certain types of foods. The first thing that you need to do to check if an allergic reaction to food is causing the symptoms is to know the dog's breed and research if there are any known allergens related to its breed. If there is none or if you are not sure of the dog's breed, you may consult your vet to have your dog tested. The followings are interested topics:

1) Preparation of Hypoallergenic Dog Food

If food allergy is the cause of your dog's symptoms, most vets would suggest stopping the most common food in the dog's diet. If you are feeding him or her specific brand of dog food, for example, the vet may recommend a more hypoallergenic food brand as a substitute. There are some hypoallergenic dog food brands available in the market. These brands are usually focused on allergies that manifest in the skin.

In many cases, the dog's allergy may be caused by way of preparing a dish. If the dog is being fed table food, the coagulated proteins and spices and oils used in cooking may be the allergens for the dog. In this case, you may try to make a transition from feeding a dog cooked food to feeding him with raw meat. Raw meat will be the natural food of dogs when they were not domesticated. You may consult your vet for advice if this is favorable for your dog.

2) Raw Meat Diet

The kind of raw meat that you feed your dog depends on what is available around you. Chicken is the most common meat fed to begin a raw meat transition because of its availability. Although there are some dogs, are also allergic to chicken meat. In this case, you may move on to the next common meat available to you. For some this may be pork, but for others, beef is more abundant.

If a dog has never eaten raw meat before, the transition between table or dog food may take some time. There are many techniques to make the transition easier. The most common among dog owners is to mix raw meat with the food the dog usually eats and slowly increase the percentage of meat in the diet with every meal. This way, the dog will hardly even notice the change in diet. Another technique is to chop the raw meat into smaller pieces to have the dog smell the meat.

3) Internal Organs in the Diet

If internal organs are more available to you, it can also be given to your dog raw if your pooch is allergic to the common dog food available in the market. The liver, spleen kidney and the lungs are the common parts that are available in the market. Some food diet experts highly suggest the inclusion of internal organs in a dog diet. Feeding internal organs to the dog doesn't need to be as frequent as other protein sources but it could be included as a possible option. When adding liver to the dog's diet, observe the stool of the dog if it becomes too loose. If so, only add liver sparingly.

4) Raw Bones for Calcium

Bones is another hypoallergenic source of nutrients for dogs. Some bones, like the thigh bones of cows, may be too hard for the dog's teeth and may break the dog's teeth if they persist in chewing it. Raw bones are better that cooked bones because they do not break into sharp splinters. Obviously, the bones are rich in calcium which may help create strong bones and harder stool.

Marybelle Harbach is an author of Hypoallergenicdogfoods.com that published some interested articles about homemade hypoallergenic dog food and dog food allergies.