Veterinarian Dr. Lera (Dr. Lara) explains hypoallergenic diets for dogs, contrasting hydrolyzed-protein foods (proteins reduced to smaller peptide sizes) with amino-acid–level/elemental diets (proteins reduced to individual amino acids). She names commercial products (Royal Canin hydrolyzed and Ultimino, Purina HA and Elemental, Hill's ZD, Blue Buffalo hydrolyzed), gives age/growth guidance (wait until ~12 months or up to 2 years for giant breeds before using some elemental diets), and cites efficacy: ~80% respond within six weeks and ~90% within eight weeks when on amino-acid–level diets. She also discusses practical issues (dry vs wet availability, avoiding other treats during the elimination, cautious long-term use due to fillers, and a stepwise reintroduction of single proteins once clinically stable).
Questions this video answers
One year and two months
Royal Canin (hydrolyzed protein; Ultimino elemental), Purina (HA; Elemental), Hill's (ZD; possibly ZD Ultra), Blue Buffalo (recent hydrolyzed product)
Wait until about 12 months old; for giant breeds possibly up to 2 years
Approximately 80% respond within six weeks and 90% within eight weeks when on amino-acid–level diets
Hydrolyzed-protein diets have dry and wet versions; amino-acid/elemental diets are available only as dry according to the speaker
Chapters
Hey guys, Dr. Lara here today I am here with Sunny. Sunny is a one year old two month pit and he the topic of the video today is going to be hypoallergenic diets. If you guys stay tuned, we'll get into what diets are hypoallergenic, why they're hypoallergenic and what we can do moving forward. All right guys, so we had a little snafu with Sunny. He wrapped himself up in the microphone cord and then dragged the microphone cord in some poop. Super fun stuff. That being said, we brought him back in. He needed to go anyways and so he was just, you know, we don't want him to be out here if he didn't need to in regards to hypoallergenic foods. So I don't know if you can see this pink ball over here. Just going to try and use more props but. So normally let's say proteins are the size of this ball right here E if you want to catch it. So what ends up happening is. Yeah, we're good. What ends up happening is when they go ahead and they have hypoallergenic foods, they go ahead and they shrink the proteins down so it's harder for the body to recognize it. So let's say that was the normal size of a food when they hydrolyze the proteins. Typically let's say as it goes down to the size of a baseball now there's another level of shrinking the proteins down and that's down to the amino acid level. This is actually a technology that was taken from formulations for babies. I know because I had to put my kids on something similar when they were having some acid reflux. And so what they do is the three or four different prescription company, prescription dog food companies have their own products. So you have Royal Canin has hydrolyzed protein, you have Purina that has ha and then you have Hills that has ZD and then they have Blue Buffalo just came out with a product recently, a hydrolyzed protein product as well. The next the amino acid level stuff, Royal Canin has a product called Ultimino. Purina has a product called Elemental and I not sure if Hills ZD Ultra is the equivalent. And so the issue with the ones that are broken down to the amino acid level, those are not all recommended for growth. I can tell you for a fact that Royal Canaan their product, you'll have to wait to put your dog on them on it till they're about 12 months old. If you have a giant breed dog you may even wait till about 2 years old. Purina just came out with this product, Elemental, like I was talking to, maybe within the last six to 12 months. And that is something that is actually approved for dogs that are growing now. I'm not sure if it's safe enough for like eight week old or three month old puppies, but I'm almost certain it's good for puppies that are at least six months old. And I think that's the case also with the hydrolyzed protein. That's something that usually you want to get them on that around six months of age. Now what I tell people and what the statistics have shown is that with the ultimate, with the ultimino and probably the Elemental, these foods have an 80% success rate within six weeks. That means if everything else is, if everything else is taken out of their diet and you're just giving them their hypoallergenic food that is broken down to a amino acid level, then within six weeks, 80% of those dogs will respond. Within eight weeks you'll have 90% of those dogs will respond. And so that is something that, that means that there's another 10% of dogs that may need another four weeks to respond or they may not respond at all to that particular food. That being said, some of the drawbacks, the hydrolyzed protein, so the baseball sized protein foods, they do have some, they have a dry and a wet version of each one of those foods versus the amino acid level breakdown foods, they only have dry versions of those. Okay, so that's something to be aware of. Now we used to think that when they were going ahead or what was told to us was that when they were creating these new foods, that it was something that would help in regards to not having to get these really odd or exotic proteins like crocodile, kangaroo, rabbit, even venison. And during the pandemic we've seen, it's just, that's been an issue either way. So don't think that it's not going to be an issue. The other thing I want you to be aware of is when you look at the back of these bags sometimes you might see chicken or whatever and people will think that they can give a chicken based product or treat. That's not necessarily the case. Because that food is broken down to such a level for the body to not have a reaction to it. You will actually not want to give them those treats. You'll want to stick with those particular foods. Now normally the dermatologist will say that fruits and vegetables are not Usually the things that cause allergies. So if you really want to give your dog something, you could try maybe giving them some blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, maybe even carrots or apples. Those are some different things that are vegetables, but, or fruits rather. But we don't think that they would be causing any sort of allergies or anything like that. At the end of the day, honestly, I don't particularly like the ingredients in the food. I do think that some of these products have like corn or soy or whatever. And although they are great to help us determine whether or not these patients actually have food allergies, long term, I probably wouldn't leave my dog on these particular foods because they have a bunch of fillers and stuff that they wouldn't normally be eating. So usually what I will do is once the patients have been good for about three, four weeks, then after that point, and I'm not saying four weeks that they've been on the diet. I mean, they've been on the diet for two months, three months, symptoms are resolving or resolved, and now we have four weeks where their skin looks great, they're not having any diarrhea, vomiting, itchiness, anything like that. Then if you want to start introducing one protein source at a time and seeing how they respond. So what do I mean? Introduce a piece of chicken up. No, my dog's having your ear infection. Okay, I'm going to introduce some beef. Oh no, my dog is having diarrhea. Okay, let me introduce some fish. Okay, they seem to be doing okay. Let me give them some more. Some more, some more. Okay, they seem to do great. Perfect. Then the next step would be to go ahead and find a food that aligns with your philosophy and then try a fish based food. If you find that that food doesn't work now you got to find another food. You may have to go back to one of those hypoallergenic diets and, and then start again. So be aware of that. Once you find a food that works, then you can go ahead and compare the ingredients on that bag of food that does work to the other bags that don't work and then you can try and see what is potentially causing those issues. So hopefully this video was something that was helpful for you guys in determining what are the hypoallergenic diets that are available and also what the process is like. If you guys have any questions or comments about this particular video, please leave it in the comment box below. If you found this video helpful, please give us a thumbs up. 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