Hi and welcome to PT. Paulie sure is adorable. My cat Pearl is allergic to grains. She would break out on her lips and chin and ever since I started feeding her a grain free diet, she's never had another problem. My oldest cat Storm became very itchy after I adopted him about 13 1/2 years ago. I was feeding him a lot foods that had fish in them. My vet at the time said that many cats are allergic to fish. He was so itchy that he was losing the fur on his ears. When I changed his diet to one without much fish in it,back then pretty much everything had some fish in it, he improved and his fur grew back.

I do know that when you do a food trial that the cat needs to be on that food for about 6-8 weeks before you notice an improvement. In my cases it didn't take that long. I was feeding everyone Innova Evo dry and canned but since Procter & Gamble bought them out I switched to Nature's Variety dry and canned. Unfortunately after a while the Nature's Variety dry food didn't agree with 5 out of 6 cats so now I'm feeding then Natural Balance Green Pea & Chicken dry, Nature's Variety Rabbit, Duck, & Vension canned, Natural Balance Duck & Green Pea, and also the Chicken & Green Pea. So far so good. I have heard that some cats are allergic to chicken so this may be part of Paulie's problem. I try to stay away from Beef and Fish. I hope you'll be able to find the right diet for Paulie. Good luck.