New Member

[animallover]

Hi everyone I am new to your forum and only found this great website by accident .I have a 2year old pug Louis and a  oneyear old 5th gen Labradoodle Zeus . My big boy Zeus is on Royal Canin for large breeds the only problem he has is sensitive skin  ,I always presumed Royal Canin was a very good food as our vet supplies it but after reading some of the views on here I am uncertain .Unfortunately I live in Northern Ireland and some of the great foods I have found here would have to be purchased on-line and when I checked the delivery prices it would make the food too expensive ( £15 delivery) . His coat is beautiful and he gets  admired every time we take him out but he gets very itchy so any suggestions would be appreciated .

[Tinyplanets]

Hello and welcome to the forum, Do  you know if he has any specific allergies? It makes life quite difficult if you have to shop on line at such a cost for postage.

Have you tried other foods which have either made the itching worse or better?

It might also be worth ruling out fleas for the itching or grass/ pollen allergy or harvest mites. I have been caught out by fleas before as the frontline seemed to be less effective. My dog also has itchy spells at this time of year possibly due to some grass pollen.

[Dottie]

Hello and welcome to the forum.  If there is no other reason for the itchiness then it does seem a good idea to look at the food.  As you say, Royal Canin does not get a high score and there are better quality products available.  Because your current product contains cereal, which could be the reason for the scratching, I would look for something that is grain free and has a single source of protein (for now). 

As delivery is so expensive, you probably need to be looking for a pet store near to your home so that you can pick the food up yourself.   Do you live near a branch of Pets at Home?  If so, they have some good grain free products. Wainwright's grain free (four varieties) is one to look for and they also do a fairly new one called Evolution.  Both of these products score well on this website.  If you do change then transition carefully, especially if you choose Evolution as it is much higher in protein.  Your dog may start to moult excessively and it may take a few months before you see a change so be patient. 

If you have food to finish off before changing, just as an interim measure, consider giving a salmon oil supplement. This might help lessen the itching. if you do try it, get a decent quality oil such as the one from Fish4Dogs.  Alternatively, a topper of sardines in sunflower oil would help give the additonal omega oils which are good for skin and coat.

[Eden Holistic Pet Foods]

Eden is available in Northern Irelend via a couple of retailers, so their delivery costs to you will be much more reasonable, details are on the store locator on the website. I assume other companies have similar store locators available too.

Check out Amazon too, as some of the foods sold through them come with free delivery,

there can be many causes of itchy skin, as already mentioned theese can be environmental as well as food related, so try to eliminate things like plug-in air fresheners and a good brush after walks to help remove grass seems and pollen too.

Skin and fur are made from protein, so even if the skin issues are not food related, having a food higher in protein gives the body more of the building blocks needed to help repair itself. food wise, the most common cause of skin issues tends to be grains (wheat, corn, rice etc) which is essentially grass seeds, less obvious is chicken, (or the antibiotics etc that are often used in their farming) so looking at fish fish or game based recipes may be worthwhile, though these are likely to be slightly more expensive.

Hope your search goes well and you find some relief for Zeus

[animallover]

Thanks for all your advice sorry it has taken me a while to get back (trying to cope with an elderly father and mum in a nursing home ) I changed Zeus onto wainwrights grain free had to mix it with his royal canin for a couple of weeks to get him used to new food as he can be quite fussy but I do think his sensitive skin is improving .He doesn't have fleas and is brushed regularly so the only change is his food .Although the wainwright grain free is cheaper it's also only 10k while the royal canin large bread was 14k also  to feed him slightly more but it's worth it .So glad I found this site and have recommended it to others .

[Dottie]

Thank you very much for getting back to us.  It's good that the food is suiting your dog and I hope it continues.   

[silverb19]

Hi and welcome to the group.

I buy my food from zooplus.co.uk and find it very competitively priced. They do some very good multi buy deals.  It's also worth signing up to receive their newsletter which informs you about regular special offers which they have. They also do free delivery on orders over £29, which when you are buying food is not difficult to achieve.