Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I made fun of people who had automatic feeders. I thought they were lazy. Dumb. People obviously have too much money burning their pockets if they'd buy such a contraption to put some food in their animal's dish. Then I moved in with my boyfriend and his cat. As it turns out, she clearly had some major food anxiety issues. She's a fat cat; 16lbs. There's another cat in the house who she does not get along with, as well as a dog that steals any and all food she can get to. So leaving a dish heaping with food was not an option. For her health/weight, and for other animals to not steal. But she, for a short while, was living in a home where it was not noticed that the other cats in the household would not let her eat, and she would go hungry for long periods. And that's when her food anxiety started. When I moved in, my boyfriend was just feeding her a small handful/snack whenever she hollered for it. But that wasn't working out, so we switched it to two feedings per day. One at 6am, one at 6pm. It helped a little, but she still constantly begged for food throughout the day. So we switched it to three feedings per day. 6am, 12pm, 6pm. Still begged. It was a nightmare. The meowing hardly ever stopped. When we did feed her, she'd practically inhale it. She was waking us up at 4am screaming for food EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING. Nothing was ever good enough. So I did the research. And to my sadness, the true winner for an automatic feeder (this one) was an ungodly $130. It was a tough pill to swallow. We avoided it. Continued our horrendous feeding schedule for 4 more months. Finally, one morning at 4am with the cat screaming, I couldn't do it anymore. I ordered this feeder that very night. I couldn't believe we just bought a $130 cat feeder...... And the day it arrived in the mail, the heavens opened up, and shone light into our sleep deprived, nerve stricken, cat wailing, lives. I set up the machine. I set the clock, plugged in my five 1/8cup feedings at the precise times I wanted them dispensed, and poured in the food. It took the cat 1 food dispensing to figure out that this machine is her Trusty Food God. Instantly, her anxiety went down by 80%. After a week or two, her anxiety was down 90%. And now I think I have her feeding at her precise preference, and she leaves us COMPLETELY alone about her food now. She no longer inhales her food either; she'll nibble on it throughout the 4 hours until her next feeding. She trusts the machine to give her food every 4 hours. And it does. Every four hours. This feeder is an absolute Godsend and a life-saver. The best $130 I've ever spent. For me. For my boyfriend. And more than anything, for the cat, who no longer has to panic about when her next meal is going to come. She never has to question if she's going to be able to eat today. She's so much calmer. About the machine: When you first get it, if you just simply pour food into the food holding tray, IT IS GOING TO TAKE ABOUT 6 SCHEDULED FEEDINGS TO ACTUALLY DROP FOOD OUT. The food goes up a conveyor belt at 1/8cup increments. If you want food to start coming out right away, you'll have to pull the food holder tray out, and fill the conveyor belt with food first (you can see exactly this in my pictures!), then put the food tray back in, and dump more food in. It's SUPER easy! It has a little bit of a noise when it's dispensing the food. You can hear a little motor running in there. By far the loudest part is when the food is dropping into the METAL bowl! Scares the hell out of me every morning because it's at the foot of our bed. At first we were using Blue Buffalo kitty food, and that comes in teeeeeny tiiiiiny little pebbles. They machine worked perfect for that food. Handled it like a champ. If I remember right, a lot of auto feeders have a hard time with tiny food pellets for some reason, but not this one. However, we quickly switched to a much larger food because the vet put our pudgy lady on an old lady diet. The feeder seems to struggle a smidge more with the bigger pellets, but still dispenses exactly 1/8cup, every time. I will never make fun of people with an auto pet feeder ever again.