Peanut was a stubborn dog to begin with, but there had to be something more to this recent lack of obedience, Tammi Nadeau thought.

About two months ago, her purebred Pug was lethargic and unresponsive. Her ears were red and hot and filled with a brown, waxy, gooey discharge. A veterinarian immediately suspected a food allergy, and started Peanut on food trials.

“Kibble food was all she got for a month,” Nadeau recalled, “and the ears didn’t change. So the vet switched to wheat-free food and we noticed a difference right away.”

This may bring to mind the fairly recent proliferation of information on Celiac Disease, a digestive disease where gluten damages the small intestine, in turn interfering with the absorption of necessary nutrients. Gluten is the protein found in wheat. The United States’ FDA says gluten, in the context of Celiac Disease, collectively refers to gluten in wheat, and to the proteins in other grains that have been demonstrated to cause harmful health effects in individuals. These grains are wheat, including different varieties such as spelt and kamut, as well as rye, barley, cross-bred hybrids and possibly oats.

And although Peanut’s veterinarian hadn’t heard of a gluten allergy in dogs, Celiac Disease has been researched and proven in one breed of dog so far, according to an article in the Canadian Veterinary Journal, Irish Setters.

But Celiac Disease or not, gluten and particularly wheat seems to be the culprit for nasty nuisances in our pets.

Peanut’s veterinarian, Dr. Brett Hayward from Nanaimo Veterinary Hospital, said the things we find allergenic are proteins, most commonly from animals and cereal grains. He said that the most common cereal grain dogs get allergies to is wheat.

Hayward said dogs and cats show signs of suffering from allergens in two of their systems: the gastrointestinal tract and the skin. So not only could their stomachs be affected, causing bowel issues and vomiting, but they could also have itchy skin and sore ears. And it’s not uncommon for a dog to get a bit depressed as well.

“Not being as happy with life is a possibility, but it’s overshadowed by the itchy redness and scratching and chewing,” Hayward explained.

Part owner of Qualicum Pet Foods and Cat Rescue, Deborah Maddocks said she recognizes a lot of allergies in the animal world of late. She said the cause is the gluten (specifically wheat, corn and soya) in pet products as a filler in order to have dog food kibble at a price that people could afford.

“But they’ve found over the years that animals weren’t really geared to eat that kind of thing and so it’s wound up causing a lot of problems in animal health.” Maddocks said.

Today, instead of using wheat to bind their products, Maddocks said better companies are using potatoes and other gluten-free products.

Dr. Jeff Grognet from the Mid-Island Veterinary Hospital in Qualicum Beach said that although he doesn’t see many issues concerning dogs and wheat, he is seeing more allergies derived from rice gluten, as he said about 90 per cent of dog food has rice in it. However rice gluten doesn’t affect those with Celiac Disease.

Dr. Marlene Smith-Schalkwijk started seeing a possible gluten sensitivity in her patients about 12 years ago.

“Funnily enough my first awareness was around a breed called the Wheaten Terrier,” Smith-Schalkwijk explained. “Every Wheaten Terrier that came to the clinic seemed to have a skin problem.”

She said once she changed the diet of this breed to gluten-free, homemade food, “lo and behold about 60 to 70 per cent of their skin problems cleared up, just by taking them off gluten.”

After graduating veterinarian school in Holland in 1976, Smith-Schalkwijk came to Canada where she began using homeopathy and then traditional Chinese medicine to help animals that weren’t responding well to Western approaches. She then studied acupuncture, herbs and eventually chiropractics before applyingit to her own holistic clinic in Courtenay called Tree of Life Veterinary Clinic. Smith-Schalkwijk explained that cats and dogs only started getting processed food in their diets in the last 30 to 40 years, as this is when gluten, which binds the kibble food together, entered their intestines.

“I think the problem really started to come in the form of the processed kibble,” she said.

Because there has been little research on the subject of gluten and our pets, Smith-Schalkwijk said there is no evidence to conclusively say it is in fact the gluten causing the problems, and not the inability to digest easily-digestible carbohydrates found in processed kibble. But either way, she said at least 50 per cent of the animals in her clinic with chronic skin problems are improved by changing their diet and fixing their intestine problem.

She said without further research and conclusive evidence, she is concerned this sensitivity to gluten or grains may damage DNA and bring this information to the offspring, creating, she said “over the long run, a whole strain of animals that have genetic — just like Celiac Disease — sensitivity to certain ingredients in kibble.”

She hopes research will also bring more awareness of this issue to the veterinarian community as well, who generally aren’t aware or won’t recognize it without scientific research to back it up.

As for Nadeau, she is just happy that Peanut seems to be back to her old self again, full of energy and curiosity, even if the wheat-free food is costing twice as much.

“Now she’ll bring toys over and want to play, she’s much happier.”

Lissa Alexander is an Oceanside-area freelance writer.