Both Otis and Allie have suffered from allergies to one extent or another. Otis's allergies are more mild, he gets ear infections which I'm told are a secondary infection most likely resulting from a food allergy. Right now I have him eating Natural Balance hypoallergenic duck and potato food. I'm also very careful not to get his head wet when he takes a bath.
Allie is much worse off... A couple months after I got him he started getting little pink bumps on his muzzle and was prone to getting infections in his face wrinkle. I was told by a few people that they were normal "puppy pimples" and not to be too worried about them. But as time went on they didn't seem to get any better. I ended up bringing him to the vet who said it was an allergic reaction and that the bumps were infections in his hair folicals from the allergy and to try switching foods to a hypoallergenic food and told me to take away all treats and all toys :( this was TERRIBLE as he is an avid chewer. They told me it could be anything from a food allergy to plastic to the glaze in his food dish, or just environmental allergies.
So I changed the food dish, food, my detergent, got rid or all household cleaners and started using vinegar and baking soda to clean everything, took away all toys and washed everything in hot water to kill dust mites and gave him benadryl, NOTHING WORKED! The only time his allergies would go away was when he was on antibiotics, but a few weeks after the antibiotics were done he would get his allergies back.
We hated putting him on antibiotics and every time his allergies came back they were worse, we tried treating it more naturally using aloe and echinacea and many other things even switching foods to a non-allergenic diet, but either because the infections in his face were too bad or because we didn't have the right combo of things it never made his face clear up.
Finally we took him to an pet allergy specialist who gave him an allergy test and we found out that his allergies are mostly environmental and that he is allergic to EVERYTHING bugs, trees, weeds, wool, feathers, dust you name it he's allergic to it.
Now we are giving him allergy shots which are low doses of the things he is allergic to plus antihistamines and antibiotics to clear up his infections.
I hope this helps some people out, I know we had a hard time finding info on this type of allergic reaction.
* above is a picture of the worst infection right before we finally went to the allergist.
