Limited ingredient diets for allergy-suffering dogs #naturalbalance

When it comes allergies, diet can be everything.

Jasmine gets quite itchy when she eats things she shouldn't. Her skin also gets dry and flaky if I let it go too long. She'll scratch and scratch, sometimes all night. That's why we've been sticking to limited ingredient diet dog foods -- like Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Diets®.

How do I know if my dog has food allergies?

The first thing to do is observe your dog.

•  Is she/he scratching constantly or over-grooming, especially at the rear end? 
• Do they have digestion problems -- gas, diarrhea and is it all the time?
• Is she/he having chronic ear problems?

They may have food allergies.

The next thing to do, and probably the easiest way to test, according to WebMD, is to put your dog on an elimination diet. This is where Limited Ingredient Diets can come into play.

What is a Limited Ingredient Diet?

A Limited Ingredient Diet is one with a strictly limited list of ingredients. While even high-quality foods might have more than one animal protein (especially chicken):

• LID dog food should stick to one, single-source animal protein
• It may also have more novel proteins -- rabbit, fish, venison, bison, that sort of thing
• They may be wheat or even grain-free

The most common food allergies are:

• beef
• dairy 
• wheat
• egg
• chicken

But dogs can be allergic to other proteins, and soy as well. These are all ingredients you will find in many commercial foods.

Jasmine is on a strict limited ingredient diet while we figure out what she is allergic to. After a few weeks, we'll start adding some of these prospective allergens back in, one at a time, to figure out which is giving her a hard time.

Natural Balance LID formulas utilize a wide variety of high-quality, natural, animal proteins, unique or otherwise -- everything from chicken to kangaroo.

This is helpful -- maybe Jasmine isn't allergic to chicken like we've always suspected, maybe it's the grain. Cool. Natural Balance has a chicken and sweet potato formula.

Maybe she's allergic to sweet potato. Natural Balance has formulas that don't use potatoes. Jasmine liked the Waygu Beef and Legume formula, for instance.

To help keep the skin and coat healthy, Natural Balance adds balanced Omega 3 and Omega 6 Fatty Acids. Natural Balance also has foods for small breed dogs specifically, which may have different nutritional needs. And all the foods are balanced for all stages of your dogs life -- from puppy to senior.

Natural Balance's LID varieties exist in dry and canned food as well as treats. And Natural Balance stands by its products with its Buy With Confidence guarantee. Every product is test at the Natural Balance facility in California.

So if you think your dog may be suffering from a food allergy, consider heading to PetSmart® to pick up Natural Balance's Limited Ingredient Diet. An extensive selection is available at your local PetSmart location, or at PetSmart.com.