Allergies season and dogs Tis back at our household! This past week it has been a hectic one, between my dog and I, this household is turning into a pharmacy! Turns out my youngest boxer Chico has been showing reactions to some sort of allergy. We knew he suffers of allergies because last year he had them really bad on his paws. This year, although he was given Benadryl and the symptoms went away, he woke up from Saturday to Monday with tons of hives and swollen eyes. We headed then to the vet.

Once at the vet, he was given a shot of Benadryl and went home with the following: pills to control vomiting, corrosion and more Benadryl pills. I am not the kind of person that agrees with that many medicines but I knew he needed something to make him feel better. After taking his meds, Chico was very calm and groggy, but all the symptoms went away. Figuring it out what is causing the allergies it will be a long process as we have to keep a journal of what he eats (he is on a raw diet), where he goes and his reactions to it. I asked the vet about getting an allergy test and I was told this was not recommend as they are not only expensive but they can provide with too much irrelevant information.

Allergies on Dogs | Chico has been suffering severe allergies. This is how he woke up everyday from Saturday to Monday. He also had hives all over his body.

Reality is, there are many Allergy tests available and you can even purchase some online. A while back a guest blog was published here, it was about Immune IQ allergy test for pets which is budget friendly. The guest blogger had always provided great content so unfortunately, I slacked and didn’t do my research before the blog post went live. I feel terrible sorry I let my readers down 🙁 – The post described how it works in terms of all the things the package includes and how you have to send samples of your dog. When one of my readers questioned me about the credibility of Immune IQ company, I did some research and despite all my efforts to find good reviews about this company, I couldn’t find any. Nonetheless to say, the post was taken down.

Allergies on dogs. These are the meds Chico has been taking to control the reaction.

This weekend I was talking to a friend and she mentioned some Saliva Test for allergies. She mentioned is expensive but worth it. I haven’t had time to do research about it but I will definitely check it out. Chico had his vet appointment this weekend and we talked more about what can we do about this problem and we’ll be looking for a long term solution (whatever that means). In the mean time he continues with his meds and I was advised to giving him a bath twice a week. My suggestion is to keep a JOURNAL , including every single food your dog eats, write down where he went for a walk (grass area, side walks, were there plants around, etc.) All this information will be helpful to eliminate items from the list.