I think my 10 year old Great Pyrenees might have a gluten allergy. She’s been having skin problems on and off for a few years (itchy, scaly). The vets can’t figure out what’s wrong; when we use special shampoo her skin tends to get better. She also has runny eyes and recently she’s been limping and having trouble getting up. She’s still pretty active and loves, I mean loves to go on walks. She absolutely insists that we take her around the neighborhood even though she ends up limping when she gets home. Much to her dismay we stopped taking her hiking or on long walks a year ago and now we go on slower and shorter walks with her. The vets have confirmed that she has arthritis but otherwise she is very healthy. They have recommened she take glucosomine and cointrodine (?) and MSM, whatever that is. I bought her some and know it will take a while for it to take effect, if it does at all. She also has rymidal for very painful times. But I hate to overmedicate her.
It hit me the other day that perhaps she has a gluten allergy after discussing her symptoms with someone. After all gluten is known to cause inflamation and arthritis in people, so why not dogs. So I’ve begun the hunt for gluten-free dog food. First I’ve been asking everyone if they can recommend any gluten-free dog food. I went to PetCo to see what they have. They have all of the regular foods all of which have gluten. And then there’s the isles of organic and all natural dog foods. Several say that they are wheat-free, but most contain barley or rye so they are not gluten-free. One I saw, called Happy Hips, I think, has Gluten-Free in bold on the packaging and yet in the ingredients they list rye and barley. That really made me mad and I’ll probably shoot them an email. I only found one brand that was truly gluten-free. It’s by Dan Perkins, I think and I can’t remember the name. I am going to search around several stores and the internet to see what is out there and then I am going to put her on a gluten-free diet for a month to see if she improves. I’d love to hear what others have done about eliminating gluten from their pets’ diets and if they’ve seen an improvement in their pets health.