German Shepherds, like any other living animal,
can develop allergies to things around them. Sometimes these
allergies are inherited through genetics and other times these
allergies affect only your dog and can occur even though your
dog's lineage does not have any of these conditions in it. It can
be frustrating but one of the first ways to handle German Shepherd
allergies is to be able to identify them and know what they are.
The symptoms can vary sometimes but the behavior can be consistent
enough that you can let your vet know what is going on and
hopefully stop it.One common allergy
is called atopy. Atopy is a skin allergy that is usually inherited
from previous generations. Some symptoms are foot biting,
excessive cleaning in areas such as the armpit, and your dog may
even develop conditions that make it difficult to breath or cause
a lot of noise when the dog is trying to breathe. Sometimes this
can be cured with a change in diet but consult your vet for the
answers you need.
Another in the list of German Shepherd
allergies is potential food allergies. Sometimes a German Shepherd
is not able to digest some proteins or other nutrients properly
and this can cause an allergic reaction. The symptoms are biting
at the coat and any kind of digestive symptom such as vomiting,
diarrhea or both. If you notice that your dog just cannot keep its
food down the contact your vet, as your vet will need to put a
program in place that tries to narrow down and identify the
nutrient that is causing the problem and then adjust your dog's
diet accordingly.
This one just needs to be said in an article
like this and that is to avoid giving your dog chocolate.
Chocolate in any form, whether it is in bars or cake, can be
potentially lethal to your dog so avoid your dog ingesting
chocolate at all costs. This is not a myth and while it is true
that some dogs can tolerate certain levels of chocolate it really
is not something that you want to try and experiment with, as you
never know what the results could be.
Some German Shepherd allergies are not as
easy to figure out as others and a fleabite causes one of the more
sneaky allergies. This is why you should always pay a lot of
attention to your dog because sometimes allergies to fleabites can
show up in places where fleas bite, like the stomach, but you
rarely look. Flea bite allergies usually show up in the form of
what is known as hot spots where there are patches of your dog's
skin that seem warm to the touch and maybe even oozing liquid. If
you find a hot spot get your dog to the vet immediately.
Allergies can pop up at any time and you
need to keep an eye on your dog so that you can recognize the
symptoms and get your dog the help it needs from your vet.
Sometimes treatment can be as easy as a change in diet while in
other cases medication may be required. But either way it is
important to treat your dog's allergies immediately.
