We seem to have figured out what Jonny's allergic too!!!!!!!

[CrissAngelLover12345]

We first eliminated most grains from his diet (with the exception of the ones in the Ol' Roy treats that my dad refuses to stop giving him...) and that mostly eliminated Jonny's chewing on himself. My mom decided to also eliminate chicken from his diet and his chewing has completely stopped! It turns out that he's allergic to rice and chicken (the Ol' Roy does not have any rice in it, and the food that my mom had gotten him off of did). It sounds like my dad is willing to not give him any rice or chicken! biggrin  

[Gabrielle_AnimalLuver]

woot, congrats, chicken is such a common allergy! I think half my clients have chicken allergies! But it is the most common first ingredient in a pet food.

I have the most awesome options for allergy sufferers! I have raw horsemeat with rabbit bones, dry California Natural with Kangaroo meat and lentils! I'm so excited about this cause before Natural Balance was the only option for allergy sufferers. And the "novelty" protein options are like, fish, lamb and I think venison. But lots of treats have those meats now, plus as carb it's rice or potato, again, probably been exposed with a cookie. Kangaroo and lentils, nope, don't know any cookies or foods like that lol  

[CrissAngelLover12345]

lol cool. We found that only one formula of Taste of the Wild does not have chicken in it, and that's the formula my mom is going to keep getting. Thankfully the treats that my dad refuses to stop giving him does not contain rice or chicken, though they do have other crappy ingredients that I wish he would stop giving them, but at least he's not allergic to the ingredients in those. We are so happy to have finally figured out what he's allergic to, and I'm happy that my dad seems to have finally came to his senses and listened to my mom since they cannot afford the allergy test. biggrin Hopefully he and my brother will remember that when it comes to nights that we have chicken/rice for dinner and not give him any since they have a bad habit of giving out table scraps... They seldom give out the rice, but they'll often give out pieces of what ever meat we're having.  

[CrissAngelLover12345]

Well, we thought we did... Last night, I caught him chewing on his back leg again... He got it all red, nasty looking and bleeding again... So either we haven't found it, or he has gotten so used to chewing the spot that he just does it now... He's beginning to drive us crazy... It's only the one spot that he chews up... no other spot... Any ideas on how to get him to stop as well as if it could be allergies or something else? We tried a spray that is supposed to relieve it, and as soon as it starts to wear off, he's back to chewing it... The only solution we have been able to find to keep him from chewing on it is an E-collar (cone)...  

[Gabrielle_AnimalLuver]

Is it maybe OCD? Also he could have allergies to several things. Have you tried natural balance? Though often it can take up to 3 months before all the allergens are out of his system. Which spray do you use?  

[CrissAngelLover12345]

If it is allergies, maybe we have to wait another couple months... It could be OCD... It could be habit... It could be dry skin... The spray we've been using is called Vet's Best that is supposed to help relieve itchy spots. It works for a while, but once it starts to wear off, he starts chewing on the spot again. Yesterday, we picked up an Earth Bath spray that is supposed to help with hot spots and help moisturize skin that we're going to try.  

[Akiska]

When Zim would have spots he chewed like crazy I'd use a combo of food grade vitamin E oil [walgreens] and olive oil. It usually knocked it out for a good 24 hours, with just a couple drops. Summer was his worst time, pollen and flea allergies.  

[CrissAngelLover12345]

I'll suggest that to my mom and see what she thinks. It might be worth a try. Did you add that to the food? We don't have a Walgreens local to us, so do you know anywhere else we could get the food grade vitamin E oil from?  

[Akiska]

Nope to his skin. Check the supplement aisles at your local grocery with the vitamins.

According to my vet common allergies are Rice, wheat, corn, chicken, lamb, and beef. You might try finding an alternative food that uses duck or he suggested a good one with rabbit.  

[CrissAngelLover12345]

Akiska

Nope to his skin. Check the supplement aisles at your local grocery with the vitamins.

According to my vet common allergies are Rice, wheat, corn, chicken, lamb, and beef. You might try finding an alternative food that uses duck or he suggested a good one with rabbit.

We've eliminated rice and most grains from his diet (I say most because my dad refuses to stop giving Jonny the Ol' Roy treats, which contains corn and beef, unless we get allergy tests done to prove that he's allergic to those ingredients... gonk ). We've eliminated chicken from his diet. We have found an alternative treat that is primarily duck breast with some natural preservatives added that everyone but my dad gives to him. The food he's getting now is the Taste of the Wild's pacific stream formula, which does not contain chicken (obviously no grains), and its protein comes from seafood. I do find it rather interesting that now, it's only the one spot on one of his back legs and no other spot, which seems like now it might be simply habit (before we eliminated the rice and majority of the grains from his diet, he was chewing at many spots, the one he's still licking and chewing obsessively being the worse one of the spots, but he still had many other spots that he worked on as well...))... If it is just habit at this point, do you have any suggestions on how to break him of it? We try to get him interested in chewing something, and he takes little to no interest in it. We try a no chew spray, and that only works until it starts to wear off, and we have to pretty much watch him like a hawk to figure out when that is... And it is so hard to get him to stay still for us to spray his leg (It's a two or more person job)... gonk And just when we think he has finally stopped, he'll go back to it again... >.<  

[Ailinea]

He may be doing it less because you eliminated a lot of corn from his diet, but still remains because your dad is feeding those crap biscuits. Seriously, ask him to pay for the damn test himself if he's so insistent on it, or tell him to stop giving the treats to him just for a little while (like a month or two) to see if anything changes. If nothing changes, he can start giving him the biscuits again. I mean, come on, is it really that hard for him to stop giving the dog treats?  

[Akiska]

I'm not sure. Because there's a difference between breaking a habit and him being driven insane by an never ending itch. You could give him a single benedryl tab and see if that stops him... Other than that I'm not sure how to handle the behavioral side of it.  

[CrissAngelLover12345]

Ailinea

He may be doing it less because you eliminated a lot of corn from his diet, but still remains because your dad is feeding those crap biscuits. Seriously, ask him to pay for the damn test himself if he's so insistent on it, or tell him to stop giving the treats to him just for a little while (like a month or two) to see if anything changes. If nothing changes, he can start giving him the biscuits again. I mean, come on, is it really that hard for him to stop giving the dog treats?

Apparently it is... We've already tried that and he still absolutely refuses... Of my parents, he's the only one who works, so he'd be basically paying for it either way, but he can't afford it... My mom has even tried telling him how much the tests are, informing him that they can't afford it, and tried to convince him to stop giving him those treats for a couple months and see if that works, but he still absolutely refused. He claims he loves him, but doesn't seem to love him enough to figure out if that is indeed the problem. He doesn't seem to want him chewing on himself any more than the rest of us, and he complains about the cone being constantly on him. But it's the only way to prevent him from chewing/obsessively lick himself. He hasn't had corn in his food for quite a while... The food he was on before my mom had started to get Taste of the Wild was Kirkland's best, which contained no corn, but it did contain rice and I think it had Barley. He had been on the Kirkland's best for about a year or two. He had a lot of corn in his food before that, but ever since I started doing the research and my mom had started getting Kirkland's Best, they had no corn in their food.

@ Akiska: It is definitely really hard to tell the difference between it being a never ending itch and it being habit... >.< I wish it were easier to tell... >.<