[Rachel M]

My dog Brisbane is allergic to chicken, turkey, duck, and eggs. There aren’t a whole lot of foods out there that he can eat. I love making lists and collecting data, so I put it all together and made a food search tool. It’s still very early in development, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

• This topic was modified 10 years ago by Rachel M. Reason: Trying to fix my picture

[theBCnut]

What a cool idea! I must have had technical difficulties. It kept giving me foods that my dog can’t have due to chicken allergy. I thought I must have checked what I should have unchecked, so I reversed everything and it gave me nothing. I definitely need instructions. I also noticed in the advanced search that it didn’t have a couple of my dogs allergens, tomato and flax seeds. But it really is a cool idea!!

[Rachel M]

Thanks for helping find that bug! Trying to fix it right now. So far I have only included brands that have at least one grain-free kibble, and only kibble, since it seemed like a good place to start. I will add tomato and flax seeds in a future update, gotta find out what else is a potential allergen and then check 800 food labels.

[Susan]

Hi Rachel, excellent site.. could you include Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes as my boy cant eat them….this will save alot of people time looking & looking for a suitable kibble….

[DogFoodie]

Wow, Rachel! I always wished there was a tool like that! I can’t imagine how much work that must’ve been. You’d have to go through each of those recipes and flag each ingredient. Then, the darn manufacturers change ingredients somewhat secretly, so you must constantly be watching for those changes. It’s a big commitment. Thanks for taking on the challenge!

I would add fish and flax to your list for my dog with food issues.

I’d probably throw in a disclaimer and tell folks to verify the ingredients themselves before they feed their pet. You know how people can be. ::smh::

[Zach M]

Great idea!!!

[Dog_Obsessed]

This is amazing! Thank you! Is there any way to request a topic to be stickied (put on top permanently)?

[theBCnut]

You can email Dr Mike at the contact us spot at the bottom of every page.

[Dog_Obsessed]

Done! Thanks!

[Rachel M]

I will be adding flax and tomato as allergy alerts, right now you can exclude potato, sweet potato, and fish oil via advanced mode.

[Dori]

Would it be possible for you to give us some specific instructions as to what we are suppose to check and uncheck. I don’t seem to know what I’m doing. It keeps coming up with foods my dog can’t eat. I switched everything around and it came up with only two foods neither of which my dog can eat so obviously I’m doing something wrong. Love the idea though. Great job, now if I could only figure it out.

[Rachel M]

Theoretically, you will uncheck the ingredients you don’t want and then hit ‘go’ and see a list of foods without those ingredients. It helps to leave as many checked as possible, if there are no foods that contain all of the specific ingredients you left checked, you won’t get any results. (i.e. there are no foods that use kangaroo as the only protein and tapioca as the only carbohydrate)

My husband and his friend are doing all of the coding for me, it’s a whale of a project and we’re all sort of learning as we go. If something doesn’t seem to be working, let me know and we’ll try to fix it.

[Naturella]

Rachel,

My dog doesn’t have allergies, but I love the allergy tool – if I ever do have a dog with allergies, I would so totally use it! And I like your blog too! Brisbane is a cutie and so are Ru and Uly! 🙂 I love your products review too.

[crazy4cats]

Hi Rachel-
Great idea. My dogs do not have allergies, but I definitely could use this tool to find a food that contains different ingredients than the one I’m feeding now to find a good food to rotate with. Thank you!

[USA]

Hi Rachel M,

GREAT TOOL!!!

One suggestion, have the default with NO boxes checked and let people check the boxes of the foods their dog HAS allergies for. It is a more intuitive way of doing it.

Thanks Again!

[DogFoodie]

I like the idea of no boxes checked initially, also. I found that I unchecked all of the boxes and then went back and checked only those I needed.

And, AH HA! I definitely overlooked the “advanced” mode!

[crazy4cats]

Hi Rachel-
BTW, your dog is awesome and I really like the fact that you put the calories on your tool as well. 🙂

[BlackandBlue]

To Rachel M., an excellent tool! I tried it and have found some new brands for my allergy dog to try. Thanks for putting it out there!

[Dori]

Hi Rachel,

I like USA’s idea of having the default with no boxes checked and then we just check the boxes that our dogs are allergic or intolerant to. Would make it easier.

USA: Really good suggestion.

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by Dori.

[Rachel M]

Today we switched the check box system around, so now all boxes start out unchecked. Check the foods your dog cannot eat and then hit ‘go’. Reset will uncheck everything, hit ‘go’ to see the results.

[Mom2Cavs]

THANK YOU for doing this! I just used it and it’s great. I did find that even though I checked I didn’t want sweet potatoes it still included foods with them. I also think you should add potatoes to you list, and perhaps peas and lentils and chickpeas. I do so appreciate all the work you put into this. It’s a fantastic tool!!!

[Rachel M]

Lentils, potatoes, and chickpeas can be found under the advanced tab. I had originally only included the major carbohydrate sources for each food, but after hearing how many dogs can’t have potatoes and sweet potatoes, I am revising the database to include all of them.

[theBCnut]

I just used it again and it was much easier this time. I found 3 new foods my dog can have, but it still suggested a great gob of foods he can’t have because I couldn’t tell it to avoid flaxseed and tomato. But I’m thrilled to find 3 more foods he can have!

[Rachel M]

Flax and tomato are being added in the next revision. Does you avoid foods with tomato pomace?

[theBCnut]

Yes!!

[Dori]

Hi Rachel, thanks for making the “unchecked” change. I just did the “advanced” search because Katie has so many intolerances and allergies to foods and ingredients. Out of the 16 foods it said that she could eat, 9 of them contained potatoes. She’s fine with sweet potatoes but not white potatoes. It’s the white potatoes that keeps coming up even though I do the advanced search and have potatoes checked. Just thought I’d let you know.

This is a huge undertaking you guys are doing. Congrats. I’m assuming it will take quite a while their will be more brands in the tool. Thanks for sharing.

[Rachel M]

Thank you for spotting that bug! We’re figuring out how to fix it and adding some new allergens and redoing the simple search.

We’re hoping to add canned/raw/dehydrated foods as well as more brands of food. Common pet store foods and the remaining foods from the existing brands are probably the next step, but I can also prioritize adding certain brands by request

[DogFoodie]

Another one just occurred to me, Rachel.

I tried to use Springtime Naturals Bug Off Garlic this past spring with my sensitive pup and he reacted very strongly. So, I now also avoid garlic for him. I don’t think I saw that as a choice on your list.

I think garlic would be nice to include as lots of folks tend to avoid garlic because they don’t feel it’s safe to begin with.

[Rachel M]

Thank you for the suggestion, garlic will definitely be going on the list. We’re fiddling with the system to make it a lot easier for me to add and update foods, hopefully we’ll have the revision done in a week or so.

[aquariangt]

Fun tool-a couple comments.

1. Is “Rice” inclusive of all rice? I didn’t see a choice for Brown Rice separately. Is Brewer’s Rice also lumped in?

2. When I clicked Peas, I still got foods that have peas. Luckily it shows what’s in them so I can quickly scroll past

[crazy4cats]

Hi Rachel-
Oops! I found another glitch, I think. When I checked both the chicken and beef boxes, Victor grain free joint health was listed. It has both of those ingredients in it. In fact, that is what I regularly feed my dogs and was trying to find something with different protein to rotate with. LOL! Thank you for this tool. It has given me some other ideas.

[Rachel M]

Thanks for pointing that one out! That particular error is caused by an omission in the database. I’m about 25% done redoing the database, after which we will be trying to make the program smarter rather than doing everything on the database end. This should make it easier to flag new allergens and generally be less time-intensive, it also should cut down on bugs like that one.

[theBCnut]

WooHoo!! I’m excited about the 2.0 version. What a neat project!

[InkedMarie]

Cool tool, thanks for that!

[DogFoodie]

Hi Rachel,

I tried your tool again this evening.

Oddly, I checked flax, chickpeas and lentils and still got a bunch of foods that contained those ingredients.

Has your latest revision taken effect yet?

I marvel at this tool you’ve created… especially when I try to estimate the countless hours I’ve spent reading every single dog food recipe on several different sites I shop!

[Dog_Obsessed]

This isn’t related to the Dog Food Wizard, but I just wanted to say I went on a two hour reading marathon of you blog this morning. It is so good!

[Rachel M]

Glad you enjoyed the blog! I certainly have fun writing it.

Dog Food Wizard 2.0has not taken effect yet. I started adding new allergens and then we decided to revamp the entire thing. It will probably be a week or two before we have the new program up and running, and I can’t make any smaller revisions to the database before then.

[DogFoodie]

Gotcha!

That’s a wonderful service! You’ve created something truly unique and very much needed.

I think something I’d add, would be a disclaimer. Tell people that it’s their responsibility to confirm that the food they choose contains none of their dog’s potential allergens / ingredients of intolerance, because ingredients frequently change and the ingredients in the actual product may vary from the products in your database at the time they were entered. I’d just hate for someone to try to blame you if something happened to their dog. Obviously, the onus is on them, but there will be people who don’t check the ingredient panel themselves.

[theBCnut]

That’s a really good idea, DF.

And I can’t wait for 2.0, so make sure you let us know when it’s ready.

[Dog_Obsessed]

I like the new pop-up warning when the page loads, especially the part about “anomolies in the fabric of space-time.” LOL!

[theBCnut]

I’ll have to go check that out. I find I’m affected by anomolies in space-time all the time.

[Rachel M]

We’re back up and running! There are definitely still some things to adjust, but the major issues with the code have been solved and almost all of the data has been entered. You should now be able to successfully filter out ingrdeints like tomato, tapioca, flaxseed, and many others.

[DogFoodie]

Awesome, Rachel! Thanks for updating us. I’m going to give it a try again today!

[crazy4cats]

Here is the link to the site that is being talked about for anyone new to this thread. Good job Rachel! https://www.dogfoodwizard.com/

[DogFoodie]

Hmm, something isn’t working for me. For example, I checked to exclude fish, but I still get foods with fish as a primary ingredient; ie: Back to Basics Whitefish and Potato; and Blackwood Grain Free Salmon and Potato; Wild Calling Rocky Mountain Medley Trout Lamb and Turkey; Wild Calling Western Plains Stampede Whitefish; Nutrience and Zignature. And, even though I check to exclude chickpeas and lentils, I still get foods that contain them, like Zignature.

The tool helps to narrow down the list considerably and of course, I’d double check the ingredients myself before I purchased it; but I wonder, am I doing something wrong?

I’m totally not trying to be a downer here! I sincerely appreciate all of your hard work and the effort you’re making to perfect his tool. I think it’s great! It’s incredibly helpful and very useful.

[Dori]

I’m still having the same issues. I’m checking all of the ingredients that I don’t want in the food yet those are the foods that are still coming up. It’s bringing up foods that include the ingredients that I’m trying to avoid. I’ve done it a number of times just trying to check to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong and it still shows me foods that have the ingredients that I’m trying to avoid.

[Rachel M]

Right now it looks like any food that doesn’t have a master ingredients list entered (either because the food has been discontinued or because I just have gotten there yet, especially at the end of the alphabet) will show up in any search result. I will try to get that fixed and the rest if the w-z brands entered today, for now just disregard anything that comes up with no listed ingredients.

[Rachel M]

Should be fixed now Dori, let me know if you still get unhelpful results.

[Dori]

Thanks Rachel. I’ll try it right now.

[Dori]

Still getting unhelpful results. I have things checked off like chicken, duck, potatoes. They are still coming up. Other ingredients too.

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