Dog food for sensitive stomachs & skin allergies

When a dog has both skin allergies and ongoing digestive trouble, those two things are almost always connected — the same ingredient that's inflaming the skin is often the one upsetting the gut too. Sensitive stomach issues in dogs generally come down to food intolerance, a specific ingredient sensitivity, or a digestive system that needs a much simpler diet to function well, and working out which applies is how you find the right food. To get a clearer picture: what breed and age is your dog, what symptoms are you seeing — loose stools, vomiting, itching, or a mix — and what have you already tried feeding them?

That history is really helpful. Chicken is actually one of the most common dietary triggers for both skin reactions and gut inflammation in dogs — it's not that it's a bad protein, it's just so widely used that sensitised dogs get exposed to it constantly. The fact that her diarrhea has appeared on top of the existing skin issues, and that the salmon didn't resolve things either, suggests she may have built up reactivity to more than one protein over time. At 8, her digestive system is also a little less resilient than it would have been at 3 or 4. What does her current kibble's ingredient list look like — is chicken the first ingredient, and does it contain any grains like wheat or maize?

The cooked chicken treats are worth stopping while you trial a new food — even small amounts of the trigger protein can keep the immune response active and make it much harder to see whether a new diet is actually working. Maize is also a common irritant for dogs with existing sensitivities, so that combination of chicken plus maize is likely doing double duty against her. What you want is a genuinely novel protein she hasn't had before, no grains, and a short ingredient list so there are fewer variables. Has she ever eaten duck? It tends to be well-tolerated by Cockers with established chicken and grain sensitivities, and it's one of the cleaner protein switches you can make.

For her situation I'd recommend Canagan Grain-Free Duck for Dogs. It's a high-meat, grain-free kibble with duck as the single animal protein — no chicken, no salmon, no beef hiding further down the list. The ingredient list is short and clean: duck, sweet potato, peas, and a handful of botanicals. No maize, no wheat, no soy. That simplicity is exactly what you want when you're trying to calm both a reactive gut and a sensitised immune system at the same time. At 200g a day for an 8-year-old Cocker, a 2kg bag will last around 10 days, which is long enough to start seeing a change in stool consistency — skin takes longer, usually 6 to 8 weeks before you can properly judge it. Transition slowly over 10 to 14 days, mixing it in gradually, and drop the chicken treats entirely for the duration of the trial. It's available on Amazon UK and reasonably well-priced for the quality.

Good luck with it — and give it the full 8 weeks before drawing conclusions on the skin side, even if the stomach settles faster. If her ear infections and paw redness do reduce on a strict duck-only diet, that's strong evidence that chicken was the core trigger, which is genuinely useful information for managing her long-term. Keep her vet in the loop too, especially if the diarrhea doesn't improve within the first two to three weeks of the transition — at her age it's worth ruling out anything else going on.