Please tell me that you don't blindly trust your vet because he is a dog owner too.
Barry Herbeck (Google him if you would like but don't if you can't read graphic stuff) was a dog owner too but would you take his nutritional advice?
This is going sound harsh but sometimes people need a wake up call.
You have a dog that is constantly itching (which is horrible for the dog - it must be miserable) that is eating a food full of fillers/grains which are a leading cause of allergies in dogs AND the food you are feeding has a known allergy causing filler Beet Pulp but you blindly trust your vet who suggested this food to you?
So many people just "go with the flow" and then after their dog dies/costs them thousands of dollars in vet bills they start to kick themselves in the butt because they realize many things could have been done differently and usually the first thing they realize is that the diet they were feeding was crap.
As a pet owner you are responsible for what you feed your dog and I am telling you now that 99.9% of vets don't have a clue about pet nutrition. You need to seriously research what goes into pet food and understand how it can affect your dog.
There are great vets in the world and then there are idiots but most fall into the middle of the road and although they can treat most conditions relatively competently - they are not always the best examples of pet ownership or the best resources for advice.
Most vets feed the foods they sell because they buy it from their clinics at cost or get it for free from the feed salesperson OR get opened returned bags for free (once the clinic has written them off as most manufacturers just tell them to junk it). Is that a good reason to recommend and feed a food? I don't think so.
Breeders are no better. Many breeders feed a certain food (think Eukanuba, Royal Canin etc) because those companies have extensive breeder programs with puppy packs, discounts etc. Getting a little bit of a discount and some puppy packs is not a good enough reason to feed substandard crap to your dogs.
Again, I don't mean to sound harsh but I have been around hundreds of vets in the last 10 years. There are less than 10 that I would trust with my dogs. I have heard the most unbelievable reasons for vets recommending a food, treatment etc and as a pet owner it is our responsibility to listen to the suggestion but do research before we accept it as gospel.
I have had vets recommend special diets to me for various animals over the years. When I have questioned the quality of the ingredients etc - they have no response for me or justification as to why that is good or bad - they simply go back to: "I feed it to my own pets" or "It is a great quality food". Which to me is a cop-out!
A vet should be able to tell you in depth why they are suggesting a food. They should educate you on label reading going ingredient by ingredient so that you understand what to look for good and bad.
A vet that just recommends one brand is not necessarily the best person to listen to especially if they are recommending a food like Royal Canin.
Yes, Royal Canin is better than Old Roy at Walmart but I couldn't feed Royal Canin to a dog that I owned - to me it is not worth the $1.00 savings from feeding Orijen. It is a no brainer and my dogs aren't itching!
Do you know how many vets I have had to educate on nutrition?! To go over labels with them ingredient by ingredient and explain WHY I will not feed that food to my dog/cat etc?
What we put into our dogs, affects them and can over time actually kill them.
Many foods have been found to contain horrible additives, preservatives, pesticides, dead/dying/diseased/decayed meat condemned from human consumption, the rendered carcasses of euthanized cats/dogs, road kill and a little thing called: sodium pentobarbital (the drug they use to euthanize our pets - well it survives the rendering process).
Please research dog foods. Please look for a more knowledgeable vet.
If you upgrade on both - your dog will be better off.