5.0 out of 5 stars Pitbull approved

D. · June 14, 2025

(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } As a white pitbull mom I need all the help finding what my dog is allergic to! I’ve heard great things about this company through an allergy group for dogs. Results come super quick and you get to see what is making your dog itchy and have gross digestive issues. We have tried it all, apoquel, cytopoint, immunotherapy, everything. He still is itchy and pink. So excited to continue eliminating the things that test shows as allergic or sensitive. It does take a few weeks for it to start helping but so amazing!! Highly recommend!

5.0 out of 5 stars Found Out What’s Been Making My Dog Itch!! Not What I Suspected Either! ! 😊

L.G. · June 5, 2025

5Strands ROCKS! Every step was easy and streamlined. Received my dog’s test results sooner than I thought I would. Was surprised at some of the results and so thankful I was able to removed them from my dog’s environment and food. There were a few questions I had with the test results concerning what items were INSIGNIFICANT and what were SEVERE INTOLERANCES. My concerns were explained to me and relieved my questions perfectly. Stacy was such a help and didn’t rush me. I will be doing more tests with 5Strands when my new dog arrives. So glad I did this testing.

5.0 out of 5 stars 5Strands process and customer Service

A.C. · May 21, 2025

I ordered the pet food/enviromental test for my dog who has been suffering from chronic skin infections. The package arrived and was very easy to complete. No plucking of hair just cut or brush out some hair. The ordered arrived back to the company in 2 business days. I received an email stating the sample had been received . I called the company with a few questions about pending results. I spoke with Stacey was extremely helpful and informative and gave me her name to call if I had further questions when I receive results.

1.0 out of 5 stars A fun Novelty, but not Scientific at all. Buyer Beware

M. · November 13, 2023

UPDATE:Turkey came back as no reaction, green coded and totally safe. So we switched her food to Turkey. Turns out she's allergic. These tests feel very randomly generated, and flat out risky and unsafe for pet well being.---Original Review---We ordered this test after our doctor confirmed a severe chicken allergy in our dog and switched her to a lamb-based diet, which quite literally saved her life.Without knowing it, feeding chicken-based foods led to an 18-month allergy flare that left my 2-year-old dog with permanent skin lesions and was threatening to make her go deaf from constant ear infections. She literally smelled like she was dying, and we were talking palliative care with our vet, who suggested an elimination diet as a last ditch attempt to figure out our dog's allergy. When we did the elimination diet and moved her to a lamb based diet, EVERY SINGLE physical symptom cleared up in about 72 hours of being off chicken.We ordered this test because we wanted to scan for a suspected salmon intolerance and anything else we might have missed during her elimination diet. So we went in aware of a severe chicken allergy/intolerance, and knowing that lamb was safe.So imagine our surprise to get our results where lamb flags as a worst of the worst intolerance - even more than the chicken that was killing her. If we were to put faith in these test results and didn't have the advanced knowledge going into the testing, we well may have taken her off the lamb food that has saved her life and moved her back to the chicken-based food that was killing her.Our test results are also unlikely to be true based on statistical probabilities. Our kit returned58 level 3 intolerances64 level 2 intolerances67 level one intolerancesThat leaves 191 things that she didn't respond to. That means she had some form of intolerance to almost exactly 50% of things they tested for.This split would not be realistic as a natural occurrence. We should expect to see significantly more non-issue and level one intolerance than level 2 and 3 intolerances. This adds to the distrust of the results.Upon closer review of the flagged allergies and their severities on our report, we noticed that anything actually in her diet flagged as intolerant on some level. The ONLY things on this test that didn't flag were food items that just don't exist in her diet at all. I suspect that this test only tests for food IN THE DOG'S SYSTEM as opposed to foods that will actually harm them.This makes sense, since Lamb would be the #1 thing in her diet, and it flagged as a level 3 "discontinue immediately" intolerance...when in reality it's a safe food for her. Chicken flagged as a level 2 intolerance, which makes sense since she's now been without it for nearly 8 weeks, with the exception of small amounts of chicken fat and by-product meal in her treats, but does have a SEVERE issue with chicken. So SOMETHING was in there, just not much, and it flagged as a lower intolerance than it should have.I understand that the test doesn't bill itself as 100% accurate, but this test could have actually led to harm to our pet and that is scary.Buy this for fun if you like, but please don't use this as a substitute for the spendy vet testing. Please don't make feeding and medication decisions based on this test. We feel like we wasted $150 on this test that could have been better allocated towards more advanced testing that is scientific and would have offered us true insight to our dog's unique needs. This test feels generic in nature and like it probably doesn't have anything to do with our dog at all.The pros are that it is simple to do, fast, and causes the dog no discomfort.

4.0 out of 5 stars scam product

A.C. · April 18, 2025

update: i had wrote a bad review on the accuracy of the intolerance food items. i changed the diet and my dog is doing good and no longer biting his coat off. o do recommend using the kibble tool site

5.0 out of 5 stars Great test!

D. · April 12, 2025

This is the 6th test done on our dog. Found out 3 years ago that the vaccines she got caused a food intolerance to every thing we were feeding her. I’ve been home cooking for her ever since. She has had an intolerance to beets pop up in the last few months and now ground beef too. We just switched her to pork and she seems to have more energy and less scratching but still have to wait 6 weeks to see if her hair grows back. If it does, then we can try turkey, both proteins show no intolerance. This test proved our vet was not totally correct when he said her issues were “environmental” and saved money and terrible side effects from him wanting to use Cytopoint shots and appoquel, both that suppress the immune system and can cause a host of other diseases. Home cooking is a lot cheaper and healthier and isn’t that hard. They received the test on a Mon and I got the results emailed on Wednesday. Highly recommend!

5.0 out of 5 stars Life Saver

A.M. · June 3, 2025

Yes this test was extremely helpful! I highly recommend!!

3.0 out of 5 stars Information hard to process

K.B. · June 6, 2025

The list was long on what our dog is sensitive to, however upon research I am learning that vets do not recommend this. They say it is not accurate.

Bought Both This Test and the DNA My Dog Food Allergies Test. Recommend 5 Strands

A.C. · October 24, 2024

(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } Our 3 year old mixed breed dog was struggling with both environmental and food allergies.Sent the DNA My Dog saliva test back via regular mail - no expedited shipping - and didn't get the results for over a month. I did receive an email stating they received the sample and asked me to pay for expedited processing - which I did not.The DNA My Dog test gave me only 3 page report that listed 1 protein she was allergic to and 2 proteins with low allergen to. Then a list of 123 allergens our dog did not react to.The 5Strands brand had a test for both environmental and food, which we purchased. Used shedded hair collected by petting her for the sample and received it back in 4 days with no expedited options. We recevied back a 12 page report that graded her allergies by none, level 1, 2 or 3. It had 3 pages of environmental allergens (eg. ash trees, cat dander, hawthorn, etc..) and 6 pages of food allergies ( sorted by fats, grains, proteins, seafood, spices, additives and veggies.)We found the 5Strand test much more comprehensive and actionable. It is more expensive, but found it well worth it. There is so much information, it does take some time to digest, but printed out the results and took them to our pet food store and walked through options -starting with the proteins our dog could have, then sorting through the rest of the ingredients.

Definitely give it a try! worth every penny

B. · July 21, 2019

I’m outraged by the negative reviews on this product... especially the person who said they got sent results without sending in their sample (they email you results so how would they have gotten your email)Collecting the hair was simple..I live in Canada and paid $30 for express tracked shipping..they email you when your sample arrives and in 5 business days I had the results. They are extremely thorough and a little difficult to understand but I think you need to use your brain to interpret the results. My dog has been shedding excessively, licking her paws and lady bits, scooting her butt and she’s had 3 ear infections in the last 2 years. she’s on a raw diet and we already tried cutting out chicken and pork to no avail. It was difficult for us to figure out what the problem was..and we went with this test kit because it’s more thorough on what it tests (example..my dog is allergic to pork fat..but not pork meal or bone or organs) so for the raw diet I felt it was better to have the thorough breakdown instead of just “pork”. Anyways the biggest cause we learned is beef (she’s reacting to all forms of beef) so I will be reworking her diet to elimite beef and fish and we will evaluate from there. I feel like this is a small price to pay to figure out what’s wrong instead of having to figure it out blindly.Anyways I recommend this product and I think people who haven’t purchased and tried it shouldn’t be leaving reviews (my vet was extremely negative on this test as well..told me it’s not possible to test allergies using hair or saliva) I’m glad I didn’t listen and gave it a shot. To be clear..it doesn’t test the allergies that are instant reactions (like mouth/ throat swelling..you wouldn’t need the kit if the dog reacts RIGHT AWAY to an allergen..this is for intolerances. Thank you.

Don't waste your money

N. · April 15, 2025

We purchased this to take to our vet to see if would help with diagnosis. He said the tests had so many contraditions, information about issue in other countries etc. He said we wasted our money.

Life Changing!

M.M. · October 28, 2023

I’m so happy that I decided to bite the bullet and get this allergy/intolerance test done for my rescue dog. Ever since I started fostering him almost 2 years ago, he’s been itchy, had dashed, GI problems and shed so much! We’ve cut out all of the yellow and red foods for 1.5 weeks now and his fur is already softer, no more itching and he barely sheds now!The test is super easy to do! No saliva sample, just brush their fur and stick it in the pre paid envelope that they give you and send it off. It took about a week from the time I send the envelope to when I got the results. Super fast! The layout of the results are emailed to you and simple do follow.I highly recommend doing this test!PS. My vet said that the test through them is $700 and to get this test instead. I’m happy with her recommendation!

I did this test I was shocked to get the results

P.D. · September 12, 2024

I did this test. I was shocked to get the results from my dog. I’m not sure if I believe everything because he was allergic to just about everything. I don’t know if I would buy this product again.