Hypoallergenic · 45 chews
More than a dozen different proteins across the range, and a single-ingredient chew for every one of them. If your dog reacts to something and you have no idea what, this is how to find out without guessing, and what to give it while you work it out.
Single-ingredient chews made from one novel protein: ostrich, goat, rabbit, venison, duck and fish are the ones to try first.
Hypoallergenic does not mean your dog cannot react to it. It means there is only one thing in the bag to react to, which is what makes finding the culprit possible at all.
The method
Elimination is slow, unglamorous and the only thing that works. Three things make it possible.
A chew with a single named protein and nothing else added removes every variable but one. Most reactions turn out to be to something sprayed, glazed or preserved rather than to the meat itself, and you cannot test for that when there are six things in the bag.
A dog cannot react to something it has never been exposed to. That is the entire logic of a novel protein: ostrich, goat and rabbit work precisely because almost no British dog food is built on them, and almost every one is built on chicken, beef or lamb.
Reactions take days to clear and days to come back, so a week tells you nothing at all. Change one thing, wait a fortnight, write down what happened. Change two things and you will reach the end of it having learned nothing.
A food trial is not a diagnosis. If your dog is itching, losing fur, or has a stomach that will not settle, a vet needs to see it. This is what to feed alongside that, not instead of it.
Ranked by novelty
Least likely to have been eaten before, first. Every one of these is a single protein with nothing added to it.
About as novel as it gets in a British dog bowl. Almost no commercial food uses ostrich, so almost no dog has ever been exposed to it, which makes it the strongest starting point once everything else has failed. It is also the densest thing we sell, so a reactive dog with a serious jaw is well served here.
Rarely used in commercial food and rarely met, so it carries the same novelty advantage as ostrich with a far gentler texture. Goat ears are softer and lower in fat than pig or cow ears, which makes them sensible for a dog with a delicate stomach as well as a suspected allergy.
The most useful novel protein we sell, because it comes in more forms than any of the others: ears, skin, sausages and nibbles. That matters during a trial, when you want to hold the protein constant and still vary the chew enough to keep a dog interested for a fortnight.
Novel for most dogs and unusually palatable, which is the combination that gets a fussy one through a trial at all. Legs are a long chew and the sausages are a training treat, so venison covers both ends of the day without introducing a second protein into the experiment.
The obvious next step when chicken is the suspect, since it is poultry without being the poultry that is in everything. Necks are a proper chew and the sausages are soft, and both are single-ingredient, so you can move a dog off chicken without changing anything else.
Worth trying when the skin is the problem rather than the stomach, because the omega oils work on the coat while the novelty works on the reaction. Fish skins are also the leanest chews we sell, which helps if the vet mentioned weight in the same conversation.
Honestly
They fail in predictable ways, and nearly always for the same handful of reasons.
Further reading Dog Food Allergies and Treats: What to Give and What to AvoidIt means one ingredient rather than none. A dog can react to ostrich as readily as to beef. The point is that with a single protein you find out which, instead of guessing between six of them.
Swapping the food and the treats in the same week makes the result unreadable. Change one thing, wait, write it down. It is tedious, and it is the only version of this that works.
A careful elimination diet is undone by one chicken biscuit from a visitor. Everybody in the house needs to know what the dog is and is not having, including the person who is certain that one will not matter.
Stomachs settle in days, but skin takes weeks, because what is already inflamed has to grow out. Judging a protein after four days is the commonest reason people decide that nothing works.
Straight answers
It means one protein and nothing added, not that no dog can react to it.
There is no legal definition of the word, which is why it is worth reading the ingredients rather than trusting the badge. Ours qualify because they are a single named meat, air-dried, with nothing sprayed on afterwards.
Whichever one your dog has never eaten. In the UK that usually means ostrich, goat or rabbit.
Read the label on whatever your dog has been eating and pick something that does not appear anywhere on it. Chicken, beef and lamb are in most commercial food, so they are rarely the right place to start.
A fortnight at minimum, and longer again if the problem is skin.
Digestive symptoms settle within a few days. Itching, ear infections and fur loss take weeks, because the inflamed skin has to grow out. Four days without change is not a failed protein, it is an unfinished trial.
Once the trial is over, as many as you like. During it, no.
Two novel proteins at once means a reaction tells you nothing about which one caused it. Hold to a single protein until you have a clear answer, and then widen out as far as you want.
No, and grain is rarely the culprit anyway.
True grain allergies exist but they are uncommon. Protein is the far more likely cause, which is why the useful question is which meat rather than whether there is wheat in it. Everything we sell is grain free regardless.
Almost certainly, and ostrich is usually the answer.
A dog that reacts to beef, chicken and lamb has still very probably never met ostrich, goat or pheasant. If genuinely nothing helps, the problem may not be food at all, and that is a conversation for the vet rather than another bag of treats.
Keep going
BlogWhat a reaction looks like, and what to do about it in order.
Read →
BlogThe gut side of the same problem, and how to run an elimination properly.
Read →
GuideOstrich is the most novel protein we sell and also the densest. Both, at once.
Read →Every chew in the collection is a single named meat with nothing added to it, which is the thing that makes finding the culprit possible.