Dogs' diets have changed as awareness of food allergies increase

February 5, 2015 by MARC MORRONE / petxperts2@aol.com

When I was a child it seems that we were able to feed our dogs any food that my mother happened to buy on sale at the supermarket that week and they all lived long and uneventful lives. Now both my dogs -- a sheltie mix and a golden retriever -- have food allergies. I cannot feed them anything that has chicken in it and have to feed them a special food that has fish as the protein source. Friends' dogs also seem to have many of these same issues. Why have things changed so much with dogs in the last 40 years? Has dog food changed so much since then? -- Robert Bradshaw, Smithtown

I do not think that the dogs have changed that much. I just think that we are more aware of their husbandry now than we were 40 years ago. Each dog is a unique individual with its own idiosyncratic responses to the foods it eats. Some dogs develop a variety of food intolerances while others can tolerate almost any food -- just as one child in a classroom may have a severe allergic reaction to peanuts and the other children can eat peanut butter all day long. Nutrient-sensitive issues occur not when there is a defect in the diet but rather when there is a sensitivity in the dog.

Dog foods have improved drastically in the last 40 years. Back then, I clearly remember feeding my dogs a type of food that was basically cornstarch and red food dye that was ground up to look like hamburger meat. It must have been like feeding my poor dogs Play-Doh. (They sure liked it though.) There was also a dry food that when water was added produced a "rich and meaty gravy" that must have been anything but real beef broth. Dog food manufacturers today have a much better understanding of what dogs need to eat to stay healthy. Plus we pet keepers are much more sensitive to and aware of our pets' health than we were decades ago.

A dog with a food allergy 40 years ago may have had that allergy all its life and the scratching and biting at its skin were attributed to fleas or hot spots rather than a sensitivity to the ingredients in the food. At the time, there were fewer dog food options and none of the premium pet foods there are today.

People take their dogs to the vet a lot more now than they did when I was a kid, so many other medical issues that dogs suffered from back then were never discovered or diagnosed.

What household items should I have in my kitchen to use as an emergency first aid kit for my pets? We have dogs, birds and cats in our home. -- Julie Penn, East Meadow

I will be honest with you on this issue as I panic totally when something happens to one of my pets and I just rush it right to the vet. Fortunately in this area you can always find a practice that's open, even on weekends and holidays. So if one of my pets had eaten poison or was bleeding profusely, I would not be in the correct frame of mind to do anything to it anyway and apart from applying pressure to a bleeding wound there is not much more I could do. If I did muck about with the animal, then most likely I would have been severely bitten or scratched.

One thing that you should have in the house though is some kind of styptic powder that you can put on a broken nail to stop the bleeding right away in both mammals and birds. Another item that every bird keeper should have is some kind of clamp lamp with a 100-watt reptile heating bulb that can be attached to the cage of a bird that is not feeling well. Many times, increasing the air temperature of a bird that is ill or hurt to 90 degrees or so will allow it to rally enough to give you some time in getting it to the vet.

I have had many, many different animals over the last half century and I have never really had anything in my medicine chest other than some Band-Aids, gauze, hydrogen peroxide, styptic powder and a heat lamp, but other pet keepers may be better in a crisis than I am.

My yellow-naped Amazon parrot is 32 years old and her feet are dry and scaly now. Is there any kind of oil I can put on her feet to make them feel better and protect them? I was going to use vitamin E oil but I wanted to ask you first. -- Sue Davison, West Islip

It is never a good idea to put any oil on a bird's feet. If the bird then raises the oil-covered foot up into its feathers, the oil gets stuck in the bird's plumage and will compromise it. Bee's wax is fine to use on a bird's feet, as is most any balm made with bee's wax. I use that on my birds all the time. Works well on my hands, too!

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