Your Pet's Allergy Journey - An Introduction

Managing a pet with skin allergies can be a lifelong challenge, and this guide aims to help you understand allergy and the various steps involved in ruling out other causes, diagnosing an allergy, and providing the lifelong management of your dog’s skin allergy. As the word ‘lifelong’ suggests, this can be a lengthy process, so the guide is broken down into road markers, that when read together, give the full journey.

We call it a journey because allergy is often found to be a complex condition that requires careful navigation to best suit each individual animal. The desired ‘destination’ - your dog’s symptoms being well-controlled long-term, is reached by working with your vet and mapping out the best route to get there, for both you and your dog.

Unfortunately, when it comes to allergy there is no ‘quick fix’, or sneaky shortcut, and unexpected hazards will crop up along the way. Like any journey, the better prepared you are, the more likely it is you will be able to navigate round any obstacles quickly, become aware of suitable detours and even learn to spot warning signs in advance and take evasive action.

Although you are positioned in the driving seat on this journey, the good news is that you are not travelling alone! Your chief navigators are your veterinary team because they’ve already travelled this road many times; their knowledge and expertise can help you reach the best long-term solutions for you and your dog.