Looking At German Shepherd Allergies

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.