Quote: alyssa myracle

Pinnacle isn't too bad, unless your dog has an oat allergy. It's an otherwise alright, mid-range food. ... It is designed for a dog with known food allergies. ...

Yeah, I just looked at the site (the ingredient list) too. It looks OK.

("Allergen free" is kind of a BS phrase, because any food containing protein can be an allergen for an individual dog, and, as pointed out earlier, chicken is on the list of most common allergens.)

But per their list: Chicken Meal, Chicken, Whole Oat Flour, Tomato Pomace, Fresh Potato, meat is up top, and that's a good thing. Having both chicken and named chicken meal above the oats would mean that the meat really does outweigh the grains. (Some foods list each grain fraction separately in order to disguise the fact that all together, they far outweigh the meat.)

What I would probably do is:
Give the dog a thorough rinsing and then check minutely for fleas; change the dog's blanket or whatever she sleeps on; vacuum with a new bag and then dispose of the bag outdoors; give fish oil and E (the fish oil in the therapeutic one-gram-per-ten-pounds dose); wipe her feet and undercarriage with an unscented baby wipe after each trip on grass, fields, woods, etc.; consider a fresh raw diet.

I would do all this, keeping a little journal to record each step taken and each response (or lack of response), and compile a good record for when you can see a derm vet. And who knows? These steps may do the trick.

Have you trialed antihistamines for her bad times, such as chlorpheniramine and hydroxyzine? My allergic dog is helped by hydroxyzine pamoate when the season is bad for him. However, antihistamines benefit only about 30% of dogs with allergies. (That 30% goes up when the antihistamine is combined with the long-chain 3s in fish oil, though.) Benadryl doesn't have a good track record. Still, to the dog who is helped, the stats are not very important.