Gluten free dogs

We have two dogs — a maltipoo (Mal­tese poo­dle mix), and a cock­a­chon (cock­er spaniel, bichon frise mix) — and they are ter­rif­i­cal­ly adorable. Zoe and Wash have been part of our fam­i­ly for over a year now. Wash had all sorts of prob­lems when we first got him. He had par­a­sites and bron­chi­tis and a high sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to fleas. We took care of every­thing, except that he was real­ly itchy. He scratched so much that he broke skin a few times. It was hor­ri­ble. We did­n’t know what to do, but we decid­ed to change food. They were on Sci­ence Diet, and first we tried Avo­derm, but they did­n’t like it too much, so we set­tled on Blue Buf­fa­lo, which is a high qual­i­ty, grain free food. His skin got a lot bet­ter, but he was still scratch­ing. We had him on an anti­his­t­a­mine, and if he did­n’t get it for a day, he would start scratch­ing a lot. We final­ly decid­ed to cut out all grains, includ­ing from treats, think­ing that maybe it was more than just going to a high­er qual­i­ty food that had helped him. And it has been great! Wash no longer scratch­es, and we haven’t giv­en him a pill in over a week. Blue Buf­fa­lo makes some grain free treats, and so do some oth­er brands. We also dis­cov­ered that Wash (but not Zoe) LOVES raw car­rots cut into thin slices. Crazy, right? Both of the dogs also love duck jerky. So now every­one in our house is gluten free, except that I keep a loaf of bread and some crack­ers around. I will need to make GF dog treats now, beyond raw car­rots. Liv­er treats, per­haps?

If you have pets, and if you are feed­ing them Sci­ence Diet, do some research. I think we went to dogfoodadvisor.com.com when we were look­ing for a new food. We were sur­prised at what goes into dog food.