Auto Pet Feeder - Available In Three Sizes

Comments about Stacks and Stacks Auto Pet Feeder - Available In Three Sizes:

This item works very well for our Beagle. If we let him he would eat a 50lbs bag of food each day. It was our children's job to feed him 1.5 cups of food each day, prior to this purchase, however, upon seeing the dog's sad puppy eyes pleading with them for more, they would willingly fill his bowl with two more cupfulls. This feeder has helped very much. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because while we were gone over New Years the feeder did get stuck ON, delivering our over anxious beagle with a pile of food he was happy to dispose of. We aren't sure if the problem was the timer having to change to the new year or if we had a power outage during the time he was to be fed or what. Before that and after that one time it has worked wonderfully and it is so funny to sit and watch him come to the feeder precicely at 5pm and wait for the motor to spit out his food. It used to take him about 1.2 seconds to wolf down his 1.5 cups of food. Now he has to wait and eat like a civilized dog...I think that's great. When the feeder is done, he will still sit there for a few minutes...JUST IN CASE another pellet is despensed and at first he would paw at it and try to stick his nose in the hole to reach for more, but now he knows it's in vain. Anyhow, I recommend the feeder as we've had good experience with it.

Comments about Stacks and Stacks Auto Pet Feeder - Available In Three Sizes:

Versus all of the other auto-pet-feeders out there this is actually the most impressive one I've come across, and so simple too! I use this with my cats. To describe this item: It's three units; the bowl, food compartment and a screw on lid. Pouring food into it is as easy as they say - never had a spilling problem - but cleaning the food compartment is a bit difficult. I'm hesitant about pouring water into it with all the mechanical parts, and the top of the lid has giant grids in it so you can't put your hand in and wipe it out. Since it's only dry food it's not that big of a deal. For the bowl I normally just wipe it out with a warm cloth when grime builds up. The electrical chord is long, chew proof and very thick. This is a good idea if you have pets that like to chew on things, but I find the chord a bit cumbersome; too thick to tuck under something nicely and keep out of the way. How the system works: Simple. If you just plugged the pet feeder into an outlet it would run all day and all night dumping food for your very happy pet! But the system comes with a detachable, programmable timer that allows you to set multiple feeding times for all days of the week. You set the amount of food you want to feed your pet by selecting the amount of time you want the feeder to stay on; kind of like how you'd program your house lights to come on when you're on vacation. Example: Monday - Sunday,7:30:00 a.m. - 7:31:10 a.m. This would allow 1 minute and 10 seconds of food to drop. You have to figure out how much that equates to in the brand of food you purchased, but that's not to difficult with a little trial and error. I personally haven't had a problem with this pet feeder, except for the ingenuity of my cats. They figured out how to stick their paws up the little latch door and drag out food by clearing the holding section where some of the food is stored before it drops. My one complaint is that the makers didn't glue the door shut! I ended up constructing a mesh/wire barrier that allowed the food to drop out but didn't allow for the cats to reach up and grab it, but they figured out how to tug on it and get bits of food to drop anyway. This was entertaining at first, but then became a fixation that was quite annoying. Needless to say, if they clear this small section of food, this disrupts the amount that you programmed to fall by taking longer to fill before it dumps into the bowl. I offset this by programming a longer time. All in all it's a wonderful item! I originally purchased this to feeder so I could sleep in on weekends. The disappointing side effect for awhile was they stopped getting excited to see me when I arrived home. Instead they sat worshipping their new best friend and barely lifting an eye towards me. I imagine they neglected to realize those first few months who actually filled that feeder whenever it went empty.