Comments on: Babyproof Pet Food Dishes

By: Mellissa

Mellissa — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:34:17 +0000

Our cat’s food and water used to be in the bathroom, which was gated. My son is 2 now and the gate has been gone for a while. He has only tried to eat the cat food once, and wasn’t impressed. I have told him that the water is “kitty’s drink” and he is not to touch it, and he doesn’t.

He doesn’t touch the kitty litter either, I told him that was kitty’s potty and it was “blah!”. Now he’ll point to it and say “Blah!” and that’s about it.

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:31:52 +0000

I had 4 cats up until after my second was born, and we always (and still do) keep their food in a room behind a gate.

I just wanted to say someone once told me that when they see one fat and one skinny cat, they think the fat one must be eating all the food… but I have always left food out for mine 24/7, and I had two humongous 16 pound cats, and 2 skinny cats, one 8 and one 10 lbs. There was never a shortage of food… just two didn’t want to eat as much as the other two. :-D

By: Pippin

Pippin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:31:31 +0000

Ohhhh, we are in the middle of this dilemma ourselves. I do free food, since my 8 year old dog has always been fine with it– she’s in very good shape and the vet says he’s okay with it.

The baby tends to only play with the food when she’s really bored, or it’s a day that ends in “y”, or she’s awake. I just keep an eye on her, she’s only eaten it once… If only she could be as neat as the dog with eating…….

I haven’t baby-gated the food, since I think I should be watching, and that the baby needs to learn to leave things alone that don’t belong to her.

The dog doesn’t care. I guess the Cheerios on the floor are a trade-off.

By: Christy

Christy — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:36:27 +0000

It wasn’t the food that was our problem, it was the water.

We just put waterhog mats under the bowls and learned to live with it.

Our daughter’s first chore was feeding the dogs, since she wanted to play with the food!

By: Emotional Father

Emotional Father — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:53:34 +0000

While I love the idea of the smart collars that control the food bowls. You realize that the little one would just figure out that the pets have to be near the bowl for them to open. So he would just make a disaster of the food only when pets are present.

For a cat you could simply build like a hidden food bowl. Cats can get very low to the ground so I picture like a simple food trough with wood surrounding it. Only the step stool is hollow allowing the cats to go slide underneath it and get to the food in the back. You could have two sizes, one for fat cat and one for skinny. If the gap between the top of the stool and the floor is small enough the fat can’t wont fit and hence can’t eat skinny cats food. Make any sense?

By: Katrina

Katrina — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:25:35 +0000

I would pay good money for your invention! DD wasn’t that interested in pet bowls, etc either. DS, at 9 months, is amazingly quick. He loves the dog’s bed, the dog’s crate, the dog’s water, etc. If the dog didn’t inhale his food within seconds, I am sure DS would gladly sample it!
We currently gate off a bathroom that has the dog bowls and my husband’s hockey equipment in it. However, since the dog thankfully isn’t into toilet water, I worry he isn’t drinking enough water!

By: Dave T.

Dave T. — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:13:42 +0000

like Rob we only put down the dog’s food 2x a day but the water, that’s another problem. K1 is a year old and he’s very into the water dish. He charged from living room to kitchen in a few seconds with an eye on the bowl like his life depends on it. Gets there. Sits up, slams hand into the water bowl and then splashes the water onto the floor/himself. It’s lovely. Basically we lift up the bowl after 1st attempt of the day and put it down at feeding times when he’s not allowed around anyway. But yeah, only other solution is to gate it off all the time, but then dog can’t get in. Surprised there hasn’t been a solution for this of some kind.

On a side note we’ve been shocked with how gentle our dog has been with K1. He has even grabbed her kibble while she’s eating and she doesn’t do anything. Very lucky.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:20:33 +0000

We don’t free feed, so we put our dogs dish up on the counter when the baby is awake. But he has access to an extra water dish in our bedroom, where she doesn’t spend much time. If it was summer, I would just leave it down and let her splash in the water.

By: RobMonroe

RobMonroe — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:00:07 +0000

Our vet told us long ago that we weren’t supposed to leave food out all day for the pets anyway, so we went with the “put it away” option. I think that you might make a fortune on your invention…

As an aside, now that our daughter is 20 months old, feeding the dog is her first assigned chore. She does it with gusto, and her hands, and the dog is okay with it because she usually feeds a little more than we would. (Mom is not a fan of the dog-food-hands, but I’m sure to wash!)