Our female cat has earned the nickname "Hoover" as she is known to vacuum up almost any food she can get to. Potato chips, spicy corn chips, even pickle slices- if she can get to it, she will eat it, or try to eat it. Any time we give her more than a tiny handful of kibble, she will invariably devour it so fast that it comes right back up. Our much slower eating boy cat had been very tolerant of her Hoovering up his food as well as her own, so we started feeding them in different rooms so he would get more than a small portion of food before she inhaled it all. As she can't be given more than a teaspoon's amount of food at a time (any more, and you will find yourself stepping in a pile of it on the carpet a few minutes later) we decided to look for a bowl that could slow down her eating. This bowl had decent reviews and was not expensive, so we gave it a try. It appears to be well-made, and not too difficult to clean- the channels in it are big enough to get a brush into. At first, "Hoover" was not pleased with this new food receptacle. At ALL. She could smell and see all those tasty nuggets that she usually made disappear within thirty seconds, but she couldn't get at them easily any longer. I could see she was frustrated, so I put down a few pieces of kibble right next to the new bowl. She gulped down this small bit of food, then looked at me, wanting more. I then tapped the bowl and "showed" her the kibble sitting in the channels of the bowl. At first, she walked away from this strange thing. Maybe her "real" bowl would re-appear, and she wouldn't have to deal with this kibble puzzle dish. She came back and checked out the new bowl again, and managed to get a few pieces of kibble out of it. I noticed she was shoving the bowl around with her paw on the cushion-y "placemat" we have under the cats' food and water. She got a few more pieces of kibble. She never flipped the bowl over entirely, which is what I was waiting for (and dreading.) The placemat we have keeps the bowl from moving around very much, so I can't attest to the bowl's "suction" (?) effectiveness. I just checked out the underside of the bowl, and don't see any suction cups or anything, but we keep their bowls on the cushy placemat anyway, so it's not going anywhere. She returned to the strange object that was holding her food hostage again and again, and each time managed to get out a few more pieces of kibble. I just checked the bowl, and there are about a dozen or so pieces of kibble sitting in it, which is amazing to see, as she is so strongly food-motivated. The bowl just arrived this afternoon, so I can't attest to its effectiveness in the long-term, but it seems to be a success so far. It has broken the feeding time cycle of giving her a tiny bit of kibble, her begging for more food, giving a tiny bit more kibble, then begging again, etc. I'll report back after a week or so. Hopefully, this new bowl will continue to keep our Hoover-cat on a lower setting. Edit: it's been about four days of her using the new bowl. As we saw that she had been leaving about half of the kibble in the bowl after eating (unheard of with a regular bowl) we increased the minimal amount of kibble we gave her to her entire morning portion. A day or so ago, if we checked the bowl after she appeared to finish eating, and there would be about seven to ten nuggets of kibble left. When she begged later, we just tapped the bowl. She got the message: if she wanted more kibble she would have to extract it from the bowl. ---- We noticed yesterday after giving her the evening's kibble allotment that the new bowl with its challenging channels was completely empty. She has figured out how to get all of the kibble out of her new bowl. After we fed her this morning, sure enough, she got all of the kibble out of it. But the bowl is still a success, as it has really slowed down her eating. In a way, she is now eating like a normal cat- and not like a fur-covered Dirt Devil. Very happy with our purchase, and if you have a Hoover kitty of your own, we highly recommend this bowl. :)
