Feline Friday: Lily's "Automatic" Feeder

 We recently went to Texas to visit our daughter. Whenever we leave, Lily has to stay in her basement "apartment" so that Tinsel will have full access to her own food upstairs without Lily stealing it. The cat sitter comes twice a day to feed and check on the girls plus Lily has ALL THE TOYS set up in her space, so she's not terribly deprived!

Still, this is the pitiful look I get! (NOTICE THOSE TWO SWEET TUFTS OF FUR ON HER HEAD, which seem to be connected to her eyebrows for effect!) And of course, I feel guilty for leaving them :(

For the first day before the cat sitter comes, I set up Lily's automatic feeder so that she gets her food on two separate occasions. If I leave it in one big bowl, she'll gulp it all before we pull out of the driveway. You think I'm kidding... 

  In fact, the feeder has packing tape all over the tray bases because once she pulled the trays forward and jammed them against the lids, preventing them from opening. I'm surprised the mechanisms still work!

This time, I set the timer so that one compartment would open in four hours and the other in ten. As soon as I closed the lids, our Lily went to work on breaking in...

She started sliding the feeder across the carpet and was hard at work trying to break into it when we left on our trip. Although it's naughty behavior, at least that will keep her busy, I thought.

We were barely out of our neighborhood when I realized we had forgotten to leave a nightlight on for her, so back we went. Spouse went inside to take care of the light and discovered that Lily HAD ALREADY PRYED OPEN Lid #1 and had eaten half of her food! I'm quite sure that by the time we hit the interstate, she had also opened Lid #2!

So much for the automatic feeder! Such a sweet, naughty, and smart girl!:)