[AussieLass]

Good grief, I just drove miles out of my way to go & get a bag of ZiwiPeak (V enison), all three of them refused to eat it, even from my hand. What to do, what to do.

They've been on raw beef, raw chicken (only very small amounts), raw egg yoke once a week, home cooked which they refused to eat, a little dehydrated liver and a mix of all the "best" American kibbles, which I've since found out are pretty darn useless (Eukanuba, Science etc).

Did I say, what to do, what to do? I was convinced they'd absolutely hoe into it & my problems would be over, 50% raw & 50% ZiwiPeak. Now I'm thoroughly miserable.

 

[Huly]

Did you get the Venison with Fish or the straight Venison? Mine will NOT eat the one with fish. Also you can try the ZP Lamb.

 

[Chi Nation]

Olivia doesnt like fish either. She just rolls on it and walks away lol
Try one of the other flavors, maybe its the fish they dont like. If you normally feed beef and chicken, try looking for a ZP of those flavors.

 

[Wicked Pixie]

Can't you just feed 100% raw?

 

[elaina]

if it were me , i wouldnt give up on the ziwipeak .... especially for the bigger 2 puppies. oh, and did the petshop you got it at have canned ziwipeak?
sometime when i go away with the dogs , they dont eat as good as they do when they're at home, so i bring some canned ziwi and they go crazy over it. ( sometimes i'll feed just a tiny bit of canned mixed with the regular ziwi )

 

[AussieLass]

Ah, I see a pattern developing ... yes, it was the Venison + Fish they are ignoring. The store (the only one in this entire state that carries it afaik) only had 2 of the smaller bags @ $42 and both were Venison + Fish so I had no choice. I saw they only had about 5 cans in stock too. Then they had 2 of the large bags @ $150 but no way would I spend those sort of $'s until I know they love the stuff like everyone else's seem to. This has made me really sad, I thought all of our problems were over & I had found the perfect balance.

WickedP, I could feed 100% raw but do not wish to for several reasons ... if/when I go away & take them with me I want convenience of a 100% healthy, easy food they're used to. If/when I go away & don't take them, I don't want carers to have to deal with different raw meals, bones, necks, offal etc.

Also, if I had to go to hospital for any length of time, they had to go into kennels, whatever, imo it would be catastrophic to have them at a point whereby the will not eat and enjoy pretty much anything offered, hence I try to include a little bit of everything high quality & different tasting in their diet.

I consider I was given poor advice at a different Pet Store recently (which is often the case, especially when it comes to tropical fish) ... "Find something your dogs likes, stick to it and don't bother giving anything else at all, ever, or you'll just create a fussy dog! They can't taste/enjoy like we do, they just eat to fuel their body!" Yeah right, watch a pup train with raw chicken or liver compared to, say, a lump of kibble, pfft. Heck, my Mastiffs eat everything from live (Possum), to raw, to anything at all that is put in their bowl that can be swallowed - they'd eat car parts if they were small enough. Why should pampered, pompous, self-absorbed little Chi's be any different lol.

I refuse to stick them on one thing & one thing only - what happens when companies change their formula, get a bad batch, go out of business or are absorbed by a major competitor, have a hiccup in production etc huh??? Recently this country had zero stocks of, I think it was Science Diet & Eukanuba, simply because the companies in USA forgot to fill out some annual paperwork to satisfy our pedantic government. People were worried as all heck, hysteria reigned supreme, so I won't be putting my dogs in that position ever, not that it would happen with 100% raw of course, but I've outlined the reasons for that rationale above - I'm happy to do about 80% raw, the rest high quality grain free whatever I can get dry feed.

Will ring the Distributor and have a chat with them today - most stores here offer money back guarantee if dogs won't eat high $ foods, but I can't swap it over for the other ZiwiPeak varieties because they don't have it

 

[Audreybabypup]

Aw I'm sorry they don't like it. I got some samples on The Honest Kitchen and Audrey ate a little but by no means seemed to enjoy it either.

 

[OzChi]

Did you wet it? My fussy little princess wouldn't eat it until i added about 1 tbs of warm water, waited for about 2 mins and them mooshed it up into a porridge like consistency. give that a go. I feed the lamb (i'm getting the venison delivered today, I get it from Pookinook and they deliver australia wide for $5 per item and I seem to get it next day) and my guys absolutely love it!

 

[AussieLass]

I put it in bowl and when that failed I hand offered (that usually gets the jealousy thing going & they'll eat anything) and when that failed, I wet it. Tried offering several times over 24 hours, in the end they were running away from me lol.

Rang the distributor and when I finished bemoaning that USA pays $29.99 for what we pay $41.95 for (how ridiculous is that when our Big Macs, Milk, Bread, Eggs Cheese etc etc all cost exactly the same). They're simply catering to the competition they have over there that we are sadly lacking here.

She spoke about gradual introduction which is fine, I do that anyway, but said that most dogs I'd read about woofed it down straight away so I would've expected mine to at least taste it, particularly since I've really been mixing their diet up something chronic since getting them and they'd not baulked at a single thing I'd given them - unorthdox perhaps, but I've not had one iota of runny anything or upset tummies.

I told her I'd chop it up into micro slivers & try for 2 weeks but if it's still a fail, then I will request them to provide me with a bag of lamb in lieu when I return this one (if it's good enough for all the top shelf (but crappy USA brands) to do that, then it's good enough for ZiwiPeak to do the same thing, especially if they want loyal customers for the next 16 years). She agreed to this proposal so I'm happy about that, but extremely disappointed with the food's palatability at this point.

At least ZiwiPeak has a decent Aussie Distributor now, wouldn't have had a hope in hell of dealing with the old one, Premier Pets, there's absolutely no personal touch about them whatsoever, just a massive business only thinking of turnover - they're also the largest wholesaler of Tropical Fish in Oz and they hawk absolute crap in that arena, and aren't known for "playing by the rules" so that tells me an awful lot about their overall ethos.

I'm still majorly annoyed about that massive price difference, especially considering it costs us less to fly to New Zealand than inside our own jolly country, yet the food travels all that way & those guys can even get discounts, pfft, it's just not fair!!

 

[OzChi]

Yeah it amazes me that it's not readily available and cheaper here since NZ is so close and our dollar is so good against theirs

 

[OzChi]

Hey AussieLass, just thought I would let you know that I got venison and fish because that was all hat was in stock and my guys love it as much as the lamb. How are you going with convincing your guys aor did you get the supplier to swap it for you?

 

[AussieLass]

No, I didn't bother - little rattus baggus will eat it (without relishing it) when I chop it finely & mix it through their mince really well to comoflauge it, but there's usually always left-overs as opposed to just raw meat. They're fine if I hand feed piece by piece, but I don't coddle them so that won't be an option once this bag is gone.

Have ordered a bag of the ZP Lamb (which the Bondi Distributor strictly recommends ALL new diners start on) and a bag of K9 Natural - if they don't really enjoy either of those, then it's going to be 100% pure, fresh human grade meat/offal/bones I'm afraid. The ONLY reason I wanted to incorporate ZP into their diet was for my convenience, when away, forgetting to defrost, lazy, don't get out to the butcher, days' staying at a Vet's (heaven forbid), when I head to Adelaide for a few days etc. Jees, imagine if we were in USA & could take our babies in the cabin with us, now wouldn't that be grand! I still can't believe they can do that.

 

[OzChi]

imagine if we were in USA & could take our babies in the cabin with us, now wouldn't that be grand! I still can't believe they can do that

I know! Last year I sat next to a guy with a gorgeous little Chi on a flight from Vegas to NY and she was a little angel the whole way, I'm sure mine would be ratbags though. I had to go to QLD for my sister's wedding when Axle was 18 weeks old and he had to go cargo - so stressful!

 

[AussieLass]

Yep, that cargo thing is a right bitch (especially when seeing some of the cargo handlers over here - think Shapelle debacle etc), leaving them exposed to the elements for endless hours in the lead-up to boarding, disembarking etc. It's stressful for us beyond words, but I cannot begin to imagine what it's like for them, even those without their simpering, whimpering mummy addiction persona.

I do wonder though how the allergy sufferers get on, and what would happen if there were, say, 100 dogs on board, and 50% all took to dumping from nerves ... that'd have to be worse than any screamin' Aussie rugrat, ankle biter, feral brat within close proximity lmao!