Dog licking

Hello Everyone my dog has been licking himself alot. I thought he was just cleaning himself. But I took him to the vet and they said it was signs of a food allergy. They said I couldn't have him on a grain free diet. I needed limited intergrident diet. They also said to try different flavors until I figure out what he is allergic too. I have tried salmon and now I'm onto lamb and rice. I haven't seen any change and he keeps licking. I am told the next step is an allergy test. But the vet is pretty booked up. I was curious to know if anyone else had the same issue and how you handled it. Thanks again.

Hello! I really hope some other owners post on here for you with their experiences.  As an owner, diagnosing an allergy must be extremely frustrating.   It's frustrating for vets - food trials may be the ultimate way of figuring out if a dog will be okay on a certain diet going forward, but they are also a slow process.  When they say 'that food and nothing else,' they mean it:  if, for example, a dog is allergic to potato and steals a chip in the pub at lunch-time, a potato-free diet is not going to be effective.  It may also take quite a long time on the novel diet before results are seen - maybe even as long as 6 weeks?  Please don't rely on my figure for that - check with your vet.  Sometimes an allergy is seen to something in the first diet and so the dog doesn't respond to it - and responds to the second or third. The other thing to consider is whether external / environmental allergens may be involved, because if something in the environment is making a dog itch, then this would skew the results.  Parasites are a biggie - most owners know whether their dog has fleas, but not whether their dog is meeting someone else's fleas e g the dog they play with down the wood, or the dog who uses the office before them, which can be significant if they're allergic to them, so on-the-dot flea treatment is vitally important in skin cases and may help up to seventy per cent of dogs. In conclusion, allergies can be long and difficult to treat.  Run a search in our blog for an article by Kate Cavanagh;  Do dogs get food allergies? - which may help to answer some of your questions. Best of luck.