Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a good idea with at least a couple of design flaws.
The mat that appears under the food dispenser is actually a ring which is easily displaced.
When you put cat food in at the top it cascades down, this means that if you imagine a sand pile as you pour sand on top it slides down the edges until it builds up enough to make a wider, taller pile. This happens with the cat food until the food reaches the holes around the edge and then it falls down to the next level. This means that without intervention on my part there's a little pile of cat food in the center that just gets older and staler. Not a hard solution, before I pour food in at the top I knock the food off of that platform down to the middle platform which generally gets cleared off.
When you add more cat food, I add 1 cup at a time for four cats, it starts pinging down through the holes and tends to go flying off sideways into the carpet. Also not a biggie, you can vacuum up whatever the little scavengers don't get for themselves.
My cats are old, and you know what they say about teaching an old cat new tricks? oh...you say that was an old dog? trust me, it's hard teaching a young cat new tricks, just try to imagine teaching an Old Cat...ok, so I didn't try to teach them anything, I just figured they'd work it out. My cats are 18, 16 and 14 (2). My 16yo, Misty, does just what the designers intended, she sticks a paw in and knocks a piece down. She enjoys doing this. One of my 14yo cats, Shroom, takes a run at it and head butts the tower raining pieces (mostly) into the dispenser tray (see problems 1 & 2 at the top). Then everybody chows down on what he's provided.
Would I recommend this to all of my cat owning friends and family (note, if there's a dog in the mix this would need to be elevated, my old Golden would have eaten the whole thing, plastic, catfood and all)? Not generally. My daughter's kitten is very playful and would probably be good at accessing the food. My sister's cats, I'd guess one would get at the food, one might and one would just sit there looking sorrowful.
So think about your own cats and their problem solving abilities. (And desires, a lot of cats like to solve problems, like how to reach and open the drawer with the baggie of catnip in it, or how to get to the roast beef sub I was planning to have for lunch. Some prefer that the staff take care of all their needs.) Then decide. Certainly it's not outrageously expensive and it's fairly fun to watch.
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