Ziwi Peak Raw Alternative Gently Processed Dog Food
Pearls:
- Feeding a whole, minimally processed diet is important to maintain a dog's longevity and health span.
- Raw diets are often messy and always require refrigeration, making them a difficult choice when traveling or convenience is a high priority.
- Here is a personal review of how Ziwi Peak Original Series Dog Food, a fresh, gently air-dried alternative to feeding a raw diet, supports a wide range of needs.
Ziwi Peak is a minimally processed, mess-free raw food alternative that travels easily without requiring refrigeration or freezing and offers the absolute highest level of nutrition for my dogs. Because I have multiple dogs with a full training schedule and traveling to agility and rally trials, I need a premium dog food that provides the best possible health advantage for my dogs and travels well.
Ziwi Peak premium dog food allows me the flexibility to feed very different ages and activity levels. My geriatric, semi-retired rally dog with heart disease is thriving on the complete and balanced heart-healthy nutrition Ziwi Peak offers. At the other end of the spectrum, my young, high-drive agility competitor border collie's demanding nutritional and energy needs are being met with the same nutrient-dense Ziwi Peak diet.
Fresh, Minimally Processed Diet
There are many reasons why fresh, minimally processed whole foods are beneficial to our dog's health. Feeding natural, gently processed ingredients prevents sickness and chronic disease. Raw, homemade diets are a great way to provide these health benefits to your dog. In certain situations, it is difficult or impossible to provide home-prepared meals, and I want the convenience of shelf-stable food.
Raw meat requires constant refrigeration and is cumbersome and messy. Ziwi Peak offers the optimum nutrition of a raw diet with the convenience of dry food at home and while traveling. Because Ziwi Peak is nutrient-dense, I feed less of it compared to traditional kibble. My agility dog is a very finicky eater, and she loves the taste and texture of Ziwi Peak.
Ziwi Peak's stated freedom principles are of particular personal value to me. The company takes animal well-being seriously and follows ethical guidelines in producing their food. This means they provide their farmed animals: freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury, or disease, freedom to express natural behavior, and freedom from fear and distress.
What's So Great About Whole, Minimally Processed Food?
According to researchers Dr. Brian Davis and Dr. Elain Ostrander, "Cancer is the leading cause of death" in older dogs. Obesity comes second, followed by organ degeneration, autoimmune disease, and diabetes right behind. In the past, I personally have been desperate for ideas to keep my dog, who was diagnosed with a terminal disease, alive and healthy for as long as possible.
Unfortunately, there is no magical panacea to keep all dogs healthy for 20 or more years. But if there were, it would most certainly be a fresh, whole-food, minimally processed diet combined with controlled weight and more movement more often.
Just making a small change in their diet makes a difference for our dogs. As reported in May 2023 by NPR Shots health news, humans also share the risks of eating ultra-processed food. Replacing even ten percent of their kibble with whole-food, low-processed toppers like Ziwi Peak on top of their daily meals improves your dog's health.
So What's In There?
Providing a fresh, minimally processed diet is pivotal in delaying aging and keeping our beloved dogs healthy and free of complications from diseases. Certain foods are nutritionally dense and contain antioxidants and beneficial vitamins and minerals, the so-called superfoods.
Ziwi Peak includes superfood ingredients to support brain, skin, and coat health, like green-lipped mussels, organic kelp that helps regulate thyroid function with trace vitamins and minerals, and green tripe that is a highly palatable source of probiotics and fatty acids that help sensitive stomachs and supports healthy digestion. Taurine supports brain and heart health, both important to me for my active sport dogs and to reduce the effects of aging.
There are several recipes to choose including chicken, beef, venison, and tripe. My dogs' favorite is the lamb recipe, and I like it because of the healthy ingredients it contains, like lamb tripe that assists a healthy gut microbiome, lamb heart that is good for my dog's heart condition, lamb cartilage that supports joints and tissue of my sport dogs and eases the aging process of my geriatric dog, and New Zealand green mussels that provides excellent maintenance for joint wellness for all ages of dogs.
How Much Do Dogs Eat?
Because Ziwi Peak is a high-grade food I give my active sport border collies each one-half cup twice per day. It is a healthy, nutrient-dense food that is slowly air-dried so the nutritional integrity of the ingredients is maintained. This means you feed less than traditional types of food like kibble.
Both my active border collies stay in optimum shape on one cup each total per day of Ziwi Peak lamb recipe. Including using it for training treats (and we do a great amount of training), an 8.8-pound bag of Ziwi Peak lasts both my border collies for about one month.
To support the health benefits of feeding fresher, less processed Ziwi Peak, I rotate whole food toppers, including fresh blueberries, a rotating variety of raw mushrooms, canned pumpkin, a dash or two of ground turmeric, wild salmon oil, and a multi-functioning joint and probiotic supplement.
Adding Ziwi Peak as a food topper is a great way to provide a healthy boost to your dog's regular diet. The convenient size and cohesive, non-crumbling texture make it a perfect training treat. I use Ziwi Peak every day to reinforce the behaviors I want while providing a healthy snack and preventing weight gain.
Any Drawbacks?
Ziwi Peak is admittedly one of the more expensive commercially prepared diets available. Fresh, high-quality ingredients simply cost more to use and produce than junk food fillers and poor-quality pet food-grade ingredients. The good news is that since Ziwi Peak is nutrient-dense you are able to offer less or even use it as a topper to replace a small amount of your dog's regular kibble.
Because of his heart condition, I need to feed my older border collie a controlled sodium diet. In order to provide the right sodium range, our veterinarian cardiologist wants to know how many milligrams (mg) of sodium per 100 kilocalories (kcal) or any diet I feed my dog.
This sodium level is typically not listed on any dog food labels, so I wrote to the Ziwi Peak company to as them to provide these values. Their air-dried tripe and lamb recipe for dogs contains 120.6 mg of sodium per 100 kcal.
According to my dog's cardiologist veterinarian, you should restrict a dog in early heart failure to less than 80 mg per 100 kcal or sodium, whereas advanced heart failure should have severely restricted sodium of less than 50 mg per 100 kcal.
If my dog goes into heart failure or when he nears the advanced stages of heart disease, I must take him off Ziwi Peak and go back to a homemade raw diet. For now, the sodium level of Ziwi Peak is sufficient, but it would be great if the company offered a lower sodium option.
Benefits and Convenience
Access to a shelf-stable, air-dried raw food diet that travels easily without refrigeration is important to me. The convenience of clean, scoopable food that provides the highest possible nutritional quality is a must-have for my very different but extremely active sport dogs.
Making homemade food with raw or gently-cooked ingredients is a good option for many dogs. If, like me, you prefer the convenience of a commercially prepared diet that still provides all the benefits of feeding meat, organs, seafood, and bone without the mess, Ziwi Peak air-dried food is a great option.
Because of its chewy, high-moisture content, Ziwi Peak makes a great training reward. Using it as a food topper to replace some of your dog's current diet is a great way to provide the benefits of a whole foods diet or entice picky eaters to want to eat their food. Ziwi Peak provides a feeding calculator, and for my dogs, it takes much less per day than what they recommended by the Ziwi Peak guide.
While you have to pay up for high-grade ingredients and gentle processing, there is value in feeding less of this nutrient-intense diet. The sodium content of 120 mg per 100 kcal is on the high side of acceptable for healthy dogs and is not the best choice for dogs with advanced heart disease. I wish the company put less sodium into their otherwise stellar product.
Ziwi Peak air-dried dog food is a good alternative to feeding a raw diet. It is gently prepared to lock in the nutrients of superfood ingredients. It has an enticing texture and smell to satisfy even the pickiest of eaters. Ziwi Peak's complete and balanced nutrition supports all life stages, including young agility competitors to geriatric pups with specific nutritional needs.
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