Im currently feeding a mix of Ziwipeak fish & vension and Acana Grasslands. The Acana is just to make the Ziwipeak last longer but I really want to feed 100% Ziwipeak. My parents pay for pet supplies and my mom wasnt too happy that Ziwipeak is a $30 bag but at the same time I never told her Acana was a $20 bag haha. I don't feel like my dog is doing as well as she could be doing if she were on 100% Ziwipeak. Although her condition improved, her coat is not as nice as other chis I see at the park and she still gets a lot of tear stains even though I wipe them everyday. Do you think that eliminating the Acana would make a big difference? How long does a bag of Ziwipeak lasts for your chis? Mine eats as though she were a 10lbs dog.

Also, if you feed a mix of Ziwipeak and kibble, how do choose which of each flavor to feed at the same time?

I read previously on this board you should not be mixing them together as they digest at different rates one should be fed solely for one meal and one for the other meal. Have you tried adding fish oil to her diet? We buy Nupro which is like a powdered vitamin mix a scoop at each meal and add water. Ninja still has tear stains but not as bad. You can do just a regular fish oil either in liquid or capsule break te capsule open over her food. There is lots of great info on ziwipeak and fish oil on this board if you do a search also I'm sure all the great members will be chiming in soon.

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I feed ziwipeak lamb and acana ranchlands kibble together, with a few raw meals per week. Odie can't handle all ziwipeak, so this is what works for us. The reason we chose ranchlands is just because that's what she seems to thrive on. The reason we chose lamb ziwi is because we did 100% venison and she started experiencing diarrhea that just wouldn't go away. I think now that we're not doing 100% ziwi that she could handle any protein source.

There's conflicting info on whether or not raw and non-raw should be fed together. We don't notice any difference, so we continue to feed them together. I found this post by brodysmom in another thread:

"There is a difference of opinion on the issue of raw and kibble digesting at different rates. The latest I've been able to find says there's no concern at all. But the mantra "DON'T FEED RAW AND KIBBLE AT THE SAME TIME" persists. I tend to think this is a myth and feeding raw and kibble is fine.

If you look at it just from a common sense perspective, raw foods and processed foods don't digest any different for humans.... I'm sure dogs, who have a much stronger GI tract than we do, would be able to process them fine.

There used to be a train of thought that carbs (kibble) sat in the GI tract much longer than raw and that if you added raw on top of that - you might get a tummy upset. I tend to think that there's no problem at all mixing it up.

This is a case of knowing your dog, but I tend to think that most dogs can process raw and kibble together just fine with no problems at all.

I have fed cooked chicken and raw chicken together in the same meal with no ill effects at all. (Had some leftover cooked chicken and just threw it in with a raw meat meal.)"

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I fed 100% ZP until recently and I only found that Mylo's coat became lovely and shiny when I was consistently feeding at least one raw meal per day. I've swapped to a different high quality kibble as I don't think ZP agrees with Mylo.

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Amberleah Holistic Kim has Amberleah on AM meal ZP and PM meal Canned Weruva. She is doing great.

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In His Service
Theresa and Amberleah Lou Lou

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Actually, raw foods (at least vegetables, I can't say that I've ever tested the theory with raw meats on myself) digest MUCH faster than cooked foods. This is because they are far easier to digest. Cooking foods changes them on a cellular level. Have you ever eaten a meal of just raw vegetables or fruit? How long did it take until you were hungry again?

Carbs and proteins also digest at different speeds. Carbs digest much more slowly (which is why you feel fuller longer when you eat a hamburger with a bun, as opposed to just a plain burger, for instance -- even the cheap, crappy white bread will digest more slowly than meat). Then you also have to take into account whether it's a simple carb or a complex one, and blah blah, yipp-a-dee-doo-dah.

Add in the fact that dogs have a completely different digestive system, designed to process raw meats very effectively and carbs not so much, and we're talking almost a-whole-nother ball game.

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I feed a mixture of kibble and Ziwipeak to both of my chis and have for months. Neither have a problem with it. The kibble has varied but I always use a grainfree kibble with a five star rating on dogfoodadvisor.com. Generally I feed lamb Ziwipeak and usually kibble with some other source of protein. I do always add water because I think that helps with digestion.

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That actually wasn't my comment, but interesting stuff.

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