Something new and exciting arrived at our house this week:
A new LILY-PROOF automatic feeder!
If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you may recall that we've been using a very basic two-part feeder when we go out of town. The cat sitter divides Lily's daily dry food into the two sections, and the lids pop up on a timer. Unfortunately, this feeder design has become quite a problem. On our last trip Lily
learned to pry BOTH LIDS open immediately -- in spite of the packing tape we've placed around the edges. This means she gulps all of her
food and that never ends well. You can read more about our feeder troubles HERE! 😍
So after years of dealing with this, I finally decided to invest in a better feeder with a lid that a crafty kitty cannot open. I looked into several options and settled on the one that would accommodate the 1/8 cup she gets at each feeding. (Most feeders have a minimum of 1/4 cup.) It also holds a huge amount of dry food, so a cat-sitter won't need to touch it at all when we're gone.
As soon as it was set up, Lily got to work trying to break into the lid. Luckily, it hooks shut in a way that (according to the reviews) should be cat-proof. She clearly knows that the food is stored in there but for now she has given up on this endeavor. WHEW!
After Spouse figured out how to program the feedings, we set it to dispense half of her food at 3pm and the other half at 10pm.
Right before the food dispenses, the feeder makes a rather loud sound which Lily has already learned means "DINNER!". At first, she approached the feeder very cautiously when the food noisily clanked into the metal bowl, but she soon overcame her fear and enjoyed a tasty afternoon snack.
I'm planning to use this feeder daily to help with portion control and get her on a better schedule with less begging throughout the day. She'll get her wet food in the morning and then dry food in two meals later in the day. So far, so good!
jp
Ha, ha! Cats can be very sneaky and persistent with these feeders for sure! I have 3, one for each kitty, and they have a large, screw on saucer lid that makes it impossible to confiscate food from. However, Checkers has gotten quite smart about reaching his paw up into the food port and continuously jiggling it until bits of food drop out. I actually had to remove the tray that the food falls into because he was constantly unhooking it and dragging it away from the feeder so he could get his paw up in there!! Lol! Gotta love ‘em!!!
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