Goldendoodle Food Allergies – Symptoms And Prevention

If your dog develops a food allergy, it can cause them daily discomfort and pain. Therefore, when selecting your Goldendoodle diet, you must take into consideration various factors that can lead to Goldendoodle food allergies.

Goldendoodle Food Allergies

As us humans, dogs also can get allergies. Furthermore, 10% of these allergies are food based. However, in some cases dogs can experience food intolerances which can be confused with food allergies.

As Golden Retrievers are one of the breeds that are predisposed to food allergies, you should expect the Goldendoodle to possibly inherit this predisposition.

The reason for that is the Goldendoodle is a mix of Poodle and Golden Retriever.

Common Goldendoodle food allergies include the following:

  • Soy
  • Corn
  • Dairy
  • Wheat

In order to avoid your Goldendoodle developing food allergies, you should always read the ingredient list and try to avoid the components mentioned above.

Also, as mentioned earlier grain free diet would be beneficial when trying to avoid food allergies.

Furthermore, the first ingredient on the list should always be meat.

In order to avoid Goldendoodle allergies, it’s recommended to buy food that’s designed for dogs with sensitive stomach.

Common Food Allergens

The following is a list of the most common allergens for dogs. Furthermore, your dog would usually be allergic to more than one of the following:

  • Beef
  • Dairy
  • Wheat
  • Egg
  • Chicken
  • Lamb
  • Soy
  • Pork
  • Rabbit
  • Fish

Most of the foods on the list above, you’ll see as ingredients on commercial kibble foods. However, some of these foods would also be used in homemade food diets.

When it comes to Goldendoodle food allergies, there are two ways to be certain. One is by running a food allergy test and the other is by food elimination diet.

Goldendoodle Allergy Symptoms

In the case your Goldendoodle develops food allergies, it’s important to know the symptoms in order to recognise the condition.

Those symptoms include the following:

  • Itching
  • Ear infection
  • Redness on belly, around inside of legs, in between paws
  • Licking, overgrooming and biting
  • Nausea and throwing up
  • Changes in coat appearance – bumps
  • Diarrhea

Some of the symptoms mentioned above might be a sign of other diseases. For instance, ear irritation and infections can be the result of the following conditions:

  • Ear mites
  • Yeast infection
  • Water infection

However, if the ear irritation is persistent, it’s most likely food allergies.

Other than the already mentioned symptoms, there are other indication of Goldendoodle food allergies.

For instance, the normal appearance of your dog’s nails should be white with pink at the base. If your Goldendoodle’s nails are turning red, brown or even starting to have a bloody appearance, means there is inflammation in the body.

This symptom is a definite sign of Goldendoodle food allergies. Furthermore, if your dog has a light coat, this sign would be even more noticeable.

In addition to that, you’d also notice their feet, skin and lips appearing pink and inflamed.

Goldendoodle Diet – Grains or Grain-Free

As mentioned above, your Goldendoodle can suffer from a sensitive stomach. If that is the case, switching your Goldendoodle diet to grain free can help.

Furthermore, you must ensure you do the following:

  • Get an advise from your vet before switching
  • Ensure that the product you’re buying is AAFCO approved

Grain free diet can improve sensitive stomach in dogs. However, Golden Retrievers are prone to taurine deficiency whilst on grain free diet.

As a result, they can develop heart failure at some point.

This is a predisposition, the Goldendoodle inherits from the Golden Retriever.

Read more about what is the best Goldendoodle diet here Goldendoodle Diet – How To Pick The Best Food

Testing For Allergies

One of the options to determine your Goldendoodle food allergies are the following:

  • Your vet can run an environmental allergy test
  • Food allergy test
  • Saliva test
  • Home kit allergy test

The mentioned tests are a non-invasive way to determine if your dog has any food allergies.

The other option is to test for other conditions in order to eliminate them. For instance, by taking a sample from your dog’s ears and testing, you’ll be ruling out environmental allergies.

However, blood testing is not the right test to determine allergy.

Food Elimination Diet

Another way of determining what food your dog is allergic to is by the elimination process. In order to do this, you must switch your dog’s diet from hard kibble food to either raw or home cooked food.

This way you’d be feeding your dog less grains or artificial additives and you’re going back to a basic diet.

Normally, this process takes much longer than an instant allergy test performed by the vet. With that said, the average time for the food elimination process is between 4 and 6 months.

After 2 weeks have passed into the new diet, you should start introducing the allergens that we mentioned in the list above to your Goldendoodle diet.

However, this should be done one ingredient per week.

The reason for that is you want to see your Goldendoodle’s reaction to the new component added to their diet. If your Goldendoodle starts showing symptoms, you’d know that your pup is allergic to the food you’ve added.

Choosing this method can save your dog pain and discomfort.

However, the downfall of this option is that it takes time and if your dog is allergic to two or three foods, it might be harder to determine.

Can My Goldendoodle Become Allergic Later On

Unfortunately, dog food allergies can appear later in life. This can happens if your Goldendoodle eats the same food for years and years.

As a result your dog would become sensitized.

The symptoms at first might be mild and slowly progress into more serious and obvious ones. For this reason, if your dog has tendencies to allergies, you must select foods that are designed for dogs with sensitive stomachs and are grain free.

In this way, you’ll be minimising the chance of your Goldendoodle developing food allergies.

Recommended Kibble Foods For Sensitive Stomach

Fortunately, we live in a time where there are many available options on the market for dogs that are prone to allergies and have sensitive stomach or skin.

These are our top three recommendations.

Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Diets Dog HA (Hypoallergenic) Dry

Purina Veterinary Diet HA (hypoallergenic) is recommended for dogs suffering with:

  • Dermatitis associated with food allergy
  • Gastroenteritis associated with food allergy
  • Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency
  • Hyperlipidaemia
  • Lymphangiectasia
  • Malabsorption
  • Inflammatory bowel disease
  • Protein losing enteropathy

This Purina Pro Plan recipe acquires the main portion of its animal protein from fresh salmon. This formula contains the following ingredients:

  • Protein 21.0%
  • Fat 10.0%
  • Carbs 54%
  • Crude fibre 2.0%
  • Fatty acids 1.3%

Ingredients include the following:

  • Maize Starch
  • Hydrolysed Soya Protein
  • Minerals
  • Coconut Oil
  • Sugar
  • Rapeseed Oil
  • Soya Oil
  • Fish Oil

A highly digestible, single-protein formula recommended by breeders and veterinarians.

Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Gastrointestinal Low Fat Kibble

Royal Canin Gastrointestinal Low Fat Adult Dry Dog Food is recommended for cases of:

  • Acute and chronic pancreatitis
  • Hyperlipidaemia
  • Lymphangiectasia
  • Exudative enteropathy
  • Gastritis
  • Oesophagitis
  • Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI)

Key benefits:

  • A highly digestible formula with balanced fibres, including prebiotics, to support a healthy digestion and transit
  • For the nutritional management of dogs needing a fat restricted diet
  • Limited fibre content to allow provision of maintenance energy levels despite fat restriction.

Ingredients include the following:

  • Rice
  • Dehydrated poultry protein
  • Wheat
  • Barley
  • Hydrolysed animal proteins
  • Beet pulp, animal fats, minerals, yeasts products, fish oil and more

Nutritional information include the following:

  • Crude ash: 6.8%
  • Protein: 22%
  • Crude fibre: 1.8%
  • Moisture: %
  • Crude oil fats: 7%

Hill’s Science Plan Adult 1+ Sensitive Stomach & Skin Medium Breed Dry Dog Food Chicken Flavour

Hill’s Science Plan Sensitive Stomach and Skin Adult dog food with Chicken supports digestive health with prebiotic fibre and promotes a beautiful coat. 

Key Benefits consist of the following:

  • High digestibility for optimal nutrient absorption and easier stool pick-up
  • Vitamin E and Omega-6 for skin nourishment and prebiotic fibre to fuel beneficial gut bacteria and support a balanced microbiome
  • Supports digestive health
  • Promotes beautiful coat

Ingredients include the following:

  • Brewers’ rice
  • Maize
  • Chicken and turkey meal
  • Maize gluten meal
    Dried whole egg
  • Animal fat
  • Dried beet pulp
  • Vegetable oil, minerals, flaxseed

Nutritional information include the following:

  • Crude Fibres 1.3%
  • Protein 22.5%
  • Crude Oils and Fats 14.2%
  • Crude Ash 5%

Final Thoughts

As humans, dogs can also develop all kinds of allergies. One of the typical allergies for a Goldendoodle, is food allergies. This is inherited from their Golden Retriever parent.

Fortunately, there is a way to prevent Goldendoodle food allergies and also to treat them once they are present.

The way to determine if your Goldendoodle has food allergies is usually by the presence of certain symptoms such as redness, itchiness, change in coat appearance and more. Unfortunately, some of these signs are also symptoms for other conditions.

Therefore the most certain way to determine your Goldendoodle food allergy is through an allergy test done by your vet.

The treatment and prevention for Goldendoodle food allergies are quite similar. Both involve putting your Goldendoodle on one of the following diets:

  • Raw or homemade food diet
  • Grain free diet

Then followed by removing the allergen that is causing your Goldendoodle to have a reaction.

As your dog can develop food allergies later in life, it’s important to pay attention to any new symptoms and take them to the vet for an examination.

Finally, always pick your Goldendoodle’s food carefully. When possible always go for a hypoallergenic or sensitive stomach option as that can prevent any future stomach upsets.

unusualpetsguide

My name is Iliyana and I'm a passionate animal lover and pet owner. As there is significantly less information online about unusual and exotic pets, I decided to found this website and recruit expert writers to help pet owners.

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