Is your dog scratching, itching, having inflammation or food allergy?

One thing we often come across is our dogs scratching and itching, sometimes it is extremely bad, even necessitating medication and treatment/ creams, etc. And we have our hands in our hair, just cannot find the cause. And the vets are usually not much help, except to push more and more medication and treatment for the symptoms, but not finding or treating the cause.

The first thing, of course, that you have to look for is fleas/ flea dermatitis. Often, some chemical preventative is required to solve that problem. A natural solution that can be effective as a preventative is apple cider vinegar (with the mother). Make a 50/50 mixture with water and spray it on your dog and thoroughly rub it into the fur (twice a week). Also, add a bit of apple cider vinegar to their drinking water – they quickly get used to the taste.

There can also be surrounding contaminants that cause inflammation – household cleaning products, in rural areas, poison that is sprayed in orchards, any weedkillers sprayed on grass, etc (this last is usually the cause of so-called grass allergy)

But a lot of the time these problems flow from the gut and digestive system, from the food they are given. The gut and digestive system are the one single thing that has the biggest effect on your dog’s health!

A massive cause of inflammation in your dog (and the itching & scratching) is corn (usually mentioned as grain or cereal on ingredients). Any inflammation in your dog will first come out in skin problems (the skin is a dog’s biggest organ). They excrete the toxins, waste through their skin. Corn in itself is an inflammatory. Corn is also not well digested by dogs – despite what most dog food companies these days say or want to infer, dogs are carnivores, their digestive system is NOT developed to digest corn, leading to it rotting in the gut and inflammation. Carbohydrates are also changed to sugar to the extent that they are absorbed, which in itself leads to obesity and inflammation. So probably this is the primary cause of inflammation. And the solution is to feed a dog an appropriate diet, that is, a food that is predominantly MEAT, NOT CORN! Options are a balanced raw diet (specifically prey model) or a quality dry food that is meat-like, such as Farmina.

There can also develop a meat protein allergy in your dog. The first reason is that most dog food companies include rubbish meat by-products/ meat meal in their dog food. Meat meal and meat by-product are NOT MEAT, it is that which is NOT FIT for HUMAN CONSUMPTION, including hoofs, hair, skin, etc. But most concerning, it includes roadkill, dead and rotten animals, sick animals, condemned meat and even euthanised animals/ pets. You are putting that sick, rotten, condemned meat into your dog, and that causes a reaction, inflammation, but also an allergy that develops against that meat protein. Never again will your dog be able to eat that meat protein without an allergic response to that meat protein.

The second cause is low-cost, bulk-produced meat filled with medications and antibiotics (to control infections/ illness in those animals) – that is now pumped into your dog. This is especially the case with chicken; this is why most cases of meat protein allergy are linked to chicken (because this is also the meat source in 95% of dog food).

The only solution is to do an elimination diet, move to another animal protein (a dog food that has ONLY a single meat protein) and from there, one by one, you can try to add other meat proteins. The best solution is probably fish (like FARMINA OCEAN), as that is nearly never an animal protein that your dog has been exposed to before. It has the added benefit that the omega-3 oils will help solve inflammation even when there is no meat allergy. It also contains no grains, and the cod is caught in northern Scandinavian waters, an area that is largely uncontaminated. This is why FARMINA OCEAN is the go-to food to solve any inflammation and/ or meat protein allergy problem.

Or you could go to another single meat protein like Farmina grass-fed New Zealand lamb, or Farmina wild boar, both grain-free and no other meat sources included – and with excellent results.

For free consultation/ advice, more info, full nutritional information and Farmina pricelist, please WhatsApp Henk 078 065 3360 or email camelotpetfood@gmail.com.