My cats always wake me up around 4 or 5 am to feed them, no matter how late I give them their last meal of the day. Hoping to avoid having to get up at this hour, I bought two of these units (they each eat different food and in a different location.) Setup was easy enough. I was able to coordinate the two so they activate within roughly 10 seconds of each other. Day one was pure comedy. The cats were nearby their dishes when the motors kicked on (it's kinda loud). They freaked: Fluffed up like they'd stuck their little paws in an electrical outlet, ran, stopped, crouched, and hissed. Once I'd regained my composure, I coaxed each one into coming to look and eventually eat from the bowl. Day two through four, the cats still shy away when the motor turns on, but are no longer freaked out. They still don't 'get it' ... that the sound means food is now available to eat. In order to get them to associate the sound with something good (food), I made an effort to be nearby at mealtimes so when the dishes kicked on, I could say, "Hungry, hungry, hungry?" and then wiggle my fingers in the bowl to show the food was in there. "Hungry" is what I would say when feeding them before, so they already knew what those words meant. I just needed them to make the connection to the sound. Day five. The lightbulb goes on at the last meal of the day. (I feed them a little less than 1/4 cup food every 6 hours.) They got me up at 5:25 am for their first meal of the day, still not realizing food was already sitting in the dishes for them. So, for the next two meals, when the motor kicked on, in addition to repeating the word "hungry", I picked them up and took them immediately to their feeders. Tonight was perfect. The feeders clicked on and both cats ran to their dishes right way and began eating. Hurray! I hope this will also be the case in the wee hours of the morning starting tomorrow. I'm very much looking forward to no longer having to endure their early AM pestering for food. Update after three months: I'm in Heaven! I get to sleep through the night. The cats love their feeders and so do I. My main motivation for getting these was the interrupted sleep, however, it's been really wonderful all the way around. I have only to remember to fill the feeders each evening, and I'm set for 24 hrs ... free to come and go without the worry of hungry cats awaiting my arrival for their next meal. July 2013: Wow! Four years later and I'm still loving these feeders. I think in all this time I've changed the batteries only a couple times. One of the units is still working absolutely perfectly and the other recently started to have difficulty rotating the bowl. It's beginning to stick and in the last couple days, it's happening a lot. Sometimes after a bit of strain it moves but other times it totally sticks and continues to run until I push the bowl. The mechanism that makes it spin seems to be a bit stripped. I've tried rotating the bowl to different positions on the spinner and cleaning it well, but have been unable to resolve the dysfunction. So, rather than waiting until it completely conks out, I decided to purchase another unit. I got four years of near-flawless functioning from this unit, so no complaints, especially since the other one is going strong. I'm looking forward to at least another four years of excellent performance from the new unit. Periodically (every couple of months) I have to resynchronize the bowls. They are running about 1 minute apart by then and I like both cats to start eating at roughly the same time so they are not both trying to eat from the feeder that activates first. This is a very minor inconvenience and if not for having two units that I need to activate together, it would be a non-issue.
