Top 10 at home allergy test for dogs You Need To Know

I have not received the results yet but I am giving a four star just because this test takes about 3 weeks to get to the final destination and now it’s been almost two weeks waiting for the results and it still says “processing sample”. In my opinion, this takes too long to get to the final destination and then it takes too long to receive the results. I already want to receive my dogs results to see what his allergies are since he leaks and leaks his paws.

My first Shih Tzu kept licking his paws and found out it was from allergies. His feet would get soo raw I feel bad. I used this and after just a few weeks, I was given the results. He was allergic to peas! Unfortunately, lots of dog food has peas. When I finally found an option (Evenger’s) it was like night and day.

I bought it again ahead of time with my new Shih Tzu. They often have allergies and I didn’t want to wait until I saw the signs. This time I found that he’s allergic to white flour. NOT whole wheat flour. Which I find odd (and why I gave 4 * instead of 5. I’ve no plans to test it but I appreciate knowing more.

There are also the “yellow” foods which some have a small allergy reaction and some not. I just try to limit those and keep an eye on him. So far so good. Worth the $.

The worst thing is having a pet that you can not help. We took our beagle from someone who couldn’t keep her about three years ago. From that day we had issues with her skin and ears. Lately it has become terrible over these last few months. The past month her right ear was terrible and bleeding and people thought her ear was amputated. We ended up with another $2,000 in vet bills for terrible ear infections that they could not get under control. They told us try the allergy shots, we did and it did not help. She takes Benadryl daily, try removing certain foods. We did. Nothing helps. I tried making homemade food. This test took a long time for results, so if you want it faster then pay the extra fee they offer. When we received the results and the items that were listed we were shocked. She is allergic to so many of the foods she was getting. Beef, turkey, chicken,peas, corn, wheat, cheese and it goes on. I realized when looking at her list I was going to be back to making homemade food her. Since we started this a few weeks ago. She had been in the vet for her ears. They treated them the day I started her new homemade food. I put a cone on for two weeks while we switched her food to help keep her away from irritating the ears anymore. So far she is showing great signs and is so much better. Now she is out of the cone and her ears are looking great! I took what was on the list she did not react to and went with it and made homemade food and treats. She was obsessively licking non-stop and scratching. I can’t say how happy we are to take the chance at this test. It has not only saved us money but saved our girl from terrible pain. I really am hopeful this will be our answers we needed since the vets allergy testing was horribly expensive.

While there are a lot of test kits on Amazon, many of them use bogus science. This was the first which helped me identify correctly my dog’s intolerances. He is much better now that we eliminated those items from his diet. Thank you!!!

INFO: We bought this Feb 24, collected the sample a week later around early Mar and sent it in a few days later. The sample arrived at At My Pet on Mar 15, and they indicated it would process for 2-3 weeks. On Mar 31, they e-mailed us and said that it would take “1-5 days past the 3-week reporting deadline” due to COVID. We received our results on Apr 11.

SAMPLE COLLECTING/PROCESS: We’ve done a puppy genetics test and this test requires significantly more saliva. Even with waving a treat in front of her face, this took 30-40 minutes since our dog isn’t particularly drool-y. It’s a painstaking process since you have to shove a thin wad of cotton in a plastic applicator in your dog’s mouth near the gum area and wait for a pink dot to completely turn red (it’s a paper dot). We were constantly removing the tube, checking the growth of the pink dot, and putting it back in her mouth as she looked at us with sad, puppy eyes. Not fun, but it’s part of the process.

The instructions after were relatively simple. They ask you to squeeze the saliva into a small provided tube, cap it, then ask you to send it with the given pre-labeled envelope. You just seal it and drop it off in a USPS mailbox. Afterwards, you have to keep the sheet they give you with a customer ID and register your kit online and register your account.

The results took a while to come (3-4 weeks), but we weren’t in a hurry and, with COVID, we weren’t expecting to receive the results fast anyway. In the meantime, you could keep checking the website with customer ID. It went from Waiting to Receive Sample, to Processing, to Results. Nothing special.

RESULTS: They give you a PDF with three sections. Red is if your dog is extremely reactive, yellow for mildly reactive, and green with a list of what they’re not reactive to. They test 121 substances, including various poultry, meats, fish, mold, household pests, popular plants, grains, etc.

Our dog was severely reactive to 5 items, and apparently mildly reactive to 18 items, including most meats and poultry, but not any dairy, including (which we know she’s at least intolerant to, since she gets diarrhea when we feed her cheese or yogurt). I put screenshots of some of the results we received to give an example of what you might receive.

Honestly, I think the conclusion is to take the results with a grain of salt and to realize the test gives you a general indication of what your dog might be allergic to, so you can start from there. The test said our dog is mildly allergic to, for example, chicken and white rice, but the dry food formula we feed her is primarily made of chicken and rice (she’s eaten this for over a year) and she does fine on that. She also eats a lot of peanut butter treats and she’s also done fine on that, despite the test listing peanut as a mild allergic reaction.

She did have an ear infection when we fed her some rinsed turkey that had been seasoned with carrots and celery a few months ago during Thanksgiving (the test says she’s severely allergic to turkey and celery, and mildly allergic to carrot), so there might be some granules of truth there. But again, grain of salt, and to simply test the food items just to make sure.

I haven’t got the results back yet…just shipping it out today. But I wanted to make a note on the process of getting the saliva sample. You have to let it sit in your dog’s cheek/under their tongue for 1.5 mins! With my dog and I’m sure most it was a huge challenge in which he kept chewing on it and potentially ruining it. Because he did one chomp on the plastic applicator the plunger that drops the sample in the bottle of fluid didn’t work and I had to carefully peel the sample out by the edge. I’m sure it works and looking forward to results but the process of getting the sample is a big challenge.

I’m not sure how accurate it is. But one of the major allergies it said my dog has pet this test wasn’t surprising. A few other allergies I was surprised about. But for the price you can’t beat it.