Purple and Paws I briefly considered dragging this out a little and making any readers of this post wait until about the middle before I explained what’s going on, but then I figured if I were reading this and the writer went on and on and on before finally explaining what’s happening, I would be pissed.
So here it is: Socks has food allergies.
It’s so bizarre I still can’t quite wrap my head around it. Mainly because I’ve never had a dog before who developed allergies over the course of their life. Socks used to be able to eat anything and everything (not that I fed him anything and everything). He ate fruit, vegetables, bread, crackers, turkey, chicken…and he loved it all.
Let’s backtrack a bit. About eight weeks ago, after running all sorts of tests and finding nothing, after trying him on a low-carb kibble diet and him still having bad days, my vet was at the end of her rope (as was I). She told me there were two more options: take him to a specialist or try a hypoallergenic diet (aka no extra food, he can only eat his special kibble and treats). At that point, I thought for sure that he had some kind of rare disease and just wanted to go to a specialist and get it over with but she suggested I try the hypoallergenic test first.
Week one passed and he still had a bad day. Week two arrived, and, lo and behold, a bad day. Week three? A bad day. By then I had just about given up but she wanted me to keep him on the diet for four to six weeks.
And then, something miraculous happened. A week went by with no bad days. Then another week. He had two whole weeks of happy, healthy days. Until my dad dropped a small piece of deli turkey and let Socks eat it. And, to my shock, the next day he was sick. The day after, back to eating his hypoallergenic food, he was fine. I excitedly emailed my vet and she told me to keep him on the special food and slowly try out other foods to see what he’s allergic to.
So far, he can’t have turkey, carrots, or dry pasta. We did have a day earlier this week when he woke up sick and I didn’t recall dropping anything or seeing him eat anything he shouldn’t have, but I’m not with him all the time. It’s entirely possible he grabbed something when I wasn’t paying attention or around.
Though I’m happy I now know what’s going on and it’s not life-threatening, it still sucks that Socks can’t eat all the stuff he used to. I bought some treats from Natural Balance, the food he used to eat, and I’m going to try them out soon. I hope he can eat those at least.
I guess the lesson from all of this is that your dog, just like you, can develop allergies over time so always, always be monitoring what he’s eating and how he’s reacting to it.