Pet Forum / Miscellaneous / Animal Health / December 2005

My favorite hypoallergenic diets are:
Hill's Science Diet z/d Ultra
IVD Rabbit & Potato (or Venison/potato or duck/potato)

I've never used Purina HA, but the idea is similar to z/d in that the
proteins are hydrolyzed so that the immune system won't recognize the
offending allergen.

I don't want to get into this too much, but I'm assuming you and your
veterinarian have diagnosed the food allergy by a hypoallergenic trial.
 Other allergies may look very similar to food allergies, such as house
dust mite allergy and grain mite allergies.  Mold allergies may also
cause non-seasonal signs.

Sandy Christmus, DVM
Scoop the POOP to reply.

Purina usually does very good research before creating a dog food but
doesn't always use the best materials but it would do the job just fine
I am sure.  At the vet I work at we use Pro Plan which would be a bit
more expencive and is just the high end version of purina.

Well, it's not precisely hypo-allergenic, but my dog eats Mastery Sensitive.
She has had moderate to massive skin infections any time we have given her
anything else, along with vaginitis, periodic vomiting, and dirty ears. We
had to switch her away from it (long story) at one point and she developed
all her symptoms all over again within a week, and her anxiety problems got
worse again too. We experimented with a few "sensitive" foods, including
Smolke, and they all reduced the symptoms somewhat but she was only ever
symptom-free on the Mastery. Recently she also developed very dry skin and a
couple of nasty-looking hot spots (she'd been on the Smolke for about 15
weeks). Just a couple of weeks ago I found a place I can order Mastery from,
and we're in the process of switching her back to it now--she's already
doing better again. Energy up, ears clearing, hot spots going away, not
scratching much at all, less nervous. No vomiting (not that his symptom was
all that common). I don't know for sure that it's available in the States,
but if it is, you might give it a try. Here's a breakdown from their
website:

Ingredients:
Dehydrated duck meat, cooked maize, duck fat, maize proteins, vegetable
fibres, linseed, sea salt, hydrolysed proteins, fructo-oligosaccharides,
vitamins, minerals and trace elements. With anti-oxidants : EC additives.

Analysis:
Crude protein 28 % - Crude fat 20 % - Crude ash 7 % - Crude fibre 2.5 % -
Moisture 8 % - Calcium 1.3 % - Phosphorus 1 % - Ca/P 1.3

Added vitamins:
A - D3 - E - K3 - B1 - B2 - B3 - B6 - B12 - PP - Folic Acid - Biotin -
Choline.

Added trace elements:
Copper - Cobalt - Iron - Manganese - Zinc - Iodine - Selenium.