GR beef allergies??

[beache]

I've been feeding Wellness Lamb & Rice to Ella, mixed with a few nuggets at each meal of Steve's Real Food (Beef) for a few weeks now. She has started scratching like crazy and now chewing her front legs & paws.
I'm exploring the possibility that it could be the Advantix I put on her 3 weeks ago. But when I went to a local groomer/pet food supplier she said that 1) GR are prone to allergies (which I knew) and 2) that many GRs are allergic to beef. She recommended that I switch to Canidae ASAP and stop the raw beef. So I am going to try that.
Just wondered if anyone has heard of problems with beef for GRs??
As an aside, the woman also really loves the Canidae for Older Dogs (don't rememer what it's called). As a groomer, she said that most times when an older dog gets switched to a senior dog food, it's coat will get dull. She said with Canidae, their coats are really shiny. She has her dogs on it.

[angenbear]

Just a thought, did she have the allergies before you mixed steve's real food in? for why switch the wellness if it's working well til you put added stuff? You might want to check the ingredient for canidea, if it has other product other than beef.

[KatysPal]

Keep in mind she's a pet food supplier, and perhaps not completely disinterested. To eliminate a possible food allergen, it makes sense to change only one variable at a time, and if you suspect the beef, then by all means remove the beef, but keep the Wellness the same. Change two things at once and you'll never be able to sort out the culprit.

Beef is at the top of Alfred Plechner's "Allergic HIT [High In Trouble] List (Pet Allergies: Remedies for an Epidemic, c. 1986, Dr Goodpet Laboratories, Inglewood, CA). The odd thing, however, is that "it is usually the old diet, the food the animal has been eating perhaps for years, that most often becomes offensive and triggers allergic reactions" (p. 19). Check for a seasonal connection--an animal can tolerate a particular protein fine during the winter but be thrown into an allergic reaction when the pollens hit. I'm in Nebraska, and three out of five creatures in my house react strongly to the ragweed in late August-September. This year it's about double its usual, and the effects hit us very hard and very abruptly.

If it is the beef, it may take awhile before an improvement is seen, perhaps several weeks.

Good luck! and keep us updated.

Anne S

[beache]

Okay, that makes sense. I'll keep feeding the Wellness and see what happens. (Only problem, she doesn't want to eat it without the Steve's, little stinker! She ate up the sample of Canidae in a flash.) I'll watch to see what happens.