What Are Common Canine Skin Allergies?
Some of the most common dog skin allergies cause inflammation for your dog’s skin. That inflammation is often rooted in a histamine reaction to some sort of trigger or allergen–environmental exposure like mold, pollen or grass is very common.
Sometimes that comes from bites from insects like fleas or ticks. Sometimes they even have skin reactions from allergies or intolerances to things they eat.
What Do Dog Skin Allergies Look Like?
It’s pretty easy to see the most common sign of a dog allergy–they scratch! Often, they scratch to the point that they can rub skin or paw raw. They may even scratch at and bite at ‘hot spots’ they’ve created.
Additionally, your dog may show signs similar to those of us humans who have allergic reactions: sneezing, coughing and runny nose.
Sometimes you’ll see hair/fur loss and they may look like they have eczema.
Some dogs even suffer from chronic ear infections or GI problems like vomiting, diarrhea, constipation or irritable bowel.
Treatments for Canine Allergies
More often than not, veterinarians will prescribe some sort of antihistamine, cortisone, hydrocortisone (or a combination of all those and more) to battle the symptoms of dog allergic reactions. No one wants to see Fluffy suffering as she itches and scratches, and stopping the histamine reaction in her body can give some symptom relief.
The issue for dog allergies, though, is deeper. The cause of the allergic reactions in the first place is commonly due to a poorly functioning immune system. Allergic reactions in humans or dogs come from an overactive immune response (and the release of histamine to battle) and so prescribing many of those medicines may stop symptoms, but they won’t get to the root of the problem.
Why Do Dogs Have Skin Allergies?
Allergic reactions happen when your dog’s immune system thinks it needs to fight. It recognizes something–mold, grass, a bite, an ingredient in food–as an intruder to your dog’s microbiome and wants to get rid of it, like yesterday.
The immune system conjures up a valiant inflammatory response to purge it, but in the process, your dog may also suffer from coughing, sneezing, gastric issues or crazy itching.
While the actual reasoning behind your dog’s immune system inaccurately recognizing things as invaders is unknown, the science shows that when a dog’s immune system is triggered, his body releases protein antibodies to take the allergen/invader molecules to the white blood cells (mast). Once that’s happened, huge amounts of histamine are released to help purge the invader, but that also brings on lots of the side effects we see as allergic reactions in dogs.
When your dog’s gut and GI tract are not healthy, this can make things worse because poorly absorbed nutrients, proteins and fuel for your dog’s body mean his immune system won’t be up to fighting as wisely, and he won’t be able to discern between a true viral/bacterial invader and a common ingredient in a food or blade of grass.
Why Probiotics for Dogs with Allergies?
Research continues to show that probiotics are uber-helpful for humans when it comes to battling allergies and the key is the building of a human’s gut and their immune response.
Our furry best friends aren’t much different. More and more research shows that probiotics can make a huge reduction in the dermatological response a dog has to allergens (meaning they’ll itch and scratch less) and the main way to do that is to give your dog a high-quality supplement that can help your dog’s gut thrive and keep his gut lining healthy.
That’s why we created Bernie’s Perfect Poop. We wanted to keep our OWN dogs’ gut health in check because both Bernie and his Great Pyrenees sister Lady struggled with itching and scratching. We began giving them premium fiber, pre- and probiotics and digestive enzymes with every meal and we saw a huge decrease in their allergy symptoms. This was because those supplements helped them digest their food fully and not break their gut lining barrier. When food or something else breaks that barrier, you deal with what is often called “Leaky Gut” and this can send their immune system into overdrive. A healthy gut lining can prevent that, and that’s what we were looking to do.
But all those supplements in isolation were costly and hard to administer (what dog wants to eat powder?) so we found experts to combine the premium ingredients that were helping our dogs into something that could help EVERY dog with allergies.
The most important thing about giving probiotics for dogs with allergies is ensuring they’re a quality probiotic that will be hardy enough to stand up to a dog’s harsh stomach acids and healthy enough to form colonies and colonies of thriving gut flora. We chose the ones in Perfect Poop for their ability to do just that, and when you give your dog Perfect Poop with each meal, you’ll be helping that gut flora be what it needs to be to reduce allergies and eliminate the symptoms of dog allergy reactions.
And the best news of all? Your dog will think you’re adding the most delicious ingredients ever to his food, while you’re building his gut and helping him get rid of the itchies.
