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I became interested in this product because I have four indoor cats, and I worry about their eating habits since they don't play as much as they did when they were kittens. One cat was becoming increasingly overweight the veterinarian said it was time for an intervention before his weight started negatively affecting his health. My other cat ate his food so quickly (even though it was left out all day) that he choked and threw it back up un-chewed. The other two cats just seemed bored. I was unable to transition to "feeding times" as opposed to ad libidem feeding because all the cats would yowl and yowl until I provided food, and my roommates threatened to move out if I couldn't shut the cats up. I thought this product would solve all of those issues, and it absolutely has.
I recognize that this product is described as a treat maze, but I have chosen to use it as my cat's main food bowl. I initially provided both the maze all day and a secondary traditional food bowl in the evening, but have since done away with the traditional food bowl all together because the maze is so successful.
Good Points:
The overweight cat is steadily losing weight because he can't eat as easily as he used to. The product does slow consumption rate dramatically. I am noticing myself using less food to feed them all, and that correlates to lower food consumption all around. It also saves me some money because I'm not running through a bag of cat food every week.
The cat who eats too fast and chokes can no longer do that. He has to work for each piece of food, and that has slowed his eating sufficiently to inhibit choking.
All four cats, who had been acting very lazy and bored, have become re-invigorated and I see them hunting and prowling around the house more often now that they are mentally stimulated. They have more interest in toys, and I see them exploring more often.
Design Flaws (which I expected prior to purchasing):
The feeder is small, and it is not in any way weighted to inhibit it from being knocked over. I never even attempted to set it up in its factory-designed state because I knew it would be on its side in 3.532 seconds.
To mitigate this design deficiency, I mounted it, with some nylon nuts and bolts, to a very nice, smooth, white lacquered 2' x 2' piece of 1/4" thick birch plywood, which I placed on little no-skid feet. This involved drilling four small holes through the bottom of the feeder, but since I chose white nylon nuts, you cannot see the mounts from a distance, and they are remarkably sturdy.
The board is big enough that the cats have to stand on it to eat out of the feeder, and therefore, simple physics inhibits them from being able to knock over the feeder-base unit upon which they are standing. Furthermore, the clean white lacquered base I designed is easy to clean with a damp cloth or a light detergent, which is much easier than dragging out a broom and mop to clean the whole floor.
Additionally, I mounted a small lip around the edge of the base so the food, when it does fall and scatter, doesn't go everywhere. It is contained by the lip at the edge of the board.
Lastly, before mounting the cat feeder to the base, I filled the underside of the feeder with polyurethane foam. This greatly reduced the noise of the food colliding with the feeder as it fell.
After a few days observing the cats, I realized they had learned how to eat out of the hole in the top of the feeder, so I closed that in with a light piece of corrugated plastic, cut into a circle to fit snugly in the top, but that is removable as to allow a human to open it to place more food in the feeder.
Aside from the designers grossly underestimating the ability of cats to knock things over and break things, I feel this is a really wonderful product without any flaws that cannot be mitigated by some simple do-it-yourself fixes. The cats had no issues figuring out how to use the feeder, although they all seem to access their food using different and ever-changing methods. It has really helped my cats' health improve, and I would credit this feeder with possibly adding years on to their lives due to the improved nutrition and eating behaviors it promotes.
The only down-side is that, despite the foam I installed to reduce the sound, it is really loud when the food falls. I got around this annoyance by placing it in a separate room that people don't typically frequent, but it would drive me crazy if I had to listen to it, lets say, in my bedroom every night.
I hope that this review was helpful to you, and that this product will help your cats live nine healthier lives.
Laura
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This is a good idea with at least a couple of design flaws.
The mat that appears under the food dispenser is actually a ring which is easily displaced.
When you put cat food in at the top it cascades down, this means that if you imagine a sand pile as you pour sand on top it slides down the edges until it builds up enough to make a wider, taller pile. This happens with the cat food until the food reaches the holes around the edge and then it falls down to the next level. This means that without intervention on my part there's a little pile of cat food in the center that just gets older and staler. Not a hard solution, before I pour food in at the top I knock the food off of that platform down to the middle platform which generally gets cleared off.
When you add more cat food, I add 1 cup at a time for four cats, it starts pinging down through the holes and tends to go flying off sideways into the carpet. Also not a biggie, you can vacuum up whatever the little scavengers don't get for themselves.
My cats are old, and you know what they say about teaching an old cat new tricks? oh...you say that was an old dog? trust me, it's hard teaching a young cat new tricks, just try to imagine teaching an Old Cat...ok, so I didn't try to teach them anything, I just figured they'd work it out. My cats are 18, 16 and 14 (2). My 16yo, Misty, does just what the designers intended, she sticks a paw in and knocks a piece down. She enjoys doing this. One of my 14yo cats, Shroom, takes a run at it and head butts the tower raining pieces (mostly) into the dispenser tray (see problems 1 & 2 at the top). Then everybody chows down on what he's provided.
Would I recommend this to all of my cat owning friends and family (note, if there's a dog in the mix this would need to be elevated, my old Golden would have eaten the whole thing, plastic, catfood and all)? Not generally. My daughter's kitten is very playful and would probably be good at accessing the food. My sister's cats, I'd guess one would get at the food, one might and one would just sit there looking sorrowful.
So think about your own cats and their problem solving abilities. (And desires, a lot of cats like to solve problems, like how to reach and open the drawer with the baggie of catnip in it, or how to get to the roast beef sub I was planning to have for lunch. Some prefer that the staff take care of all their needs.) Then decide. Certainly it's not outrageously expensive and it's fairly fun to watch.
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I bought this for my very clever and somewhat rotund Munchkin cat, Ember. She weighs eleven pounds, bear this in mind while reading. I set up the food maze, and placed a small handful of her favorite treats in it as the instruction manual describes. She spent all of two seconds figuring it out. I was worried that her short legs (she IS a Munchkin after all) would impede her, but I needn't have worried. The problem with the maze is twofold: the hole at the top is big enough for her head to fit in, and the maze is extremely lightweight. She stretched up and stuck her head down the hole in the center of the top of the maze, and chowed down. Some of the treats fell through the holes while she was eating...instead of pawing the treats out with her little feet, she instead grabbed the top of the maze and hauled on it, pulling it over. Once it was on it's side, she pushed it around to get the treats to fall out.
It took her literally one minute to get all of the treats out of the maze. And now that she knows how to "cheat" the maze, that's all she does...pull it over and spill the treats out. The mat under it does NOTHING to hold it in place.
If you have a cat that weighs more than five pounds, or a cat who is relatively smart, avoid this. They should have made a lid without a hole for the top, and maybe it'd work better if I duct taped it to the floor. I'm very dissatisfied with the product and will be giving it to a friend with smaller (though equally clever) cats to see how they fare with it.
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I originally got this product for my FAT kitty, her name is Naughtya.. I have two cats, one male (Gimli) and one female (Naughtya) I try and moderate their food intake because Gimli eats like a bird and saves his kibble for later (I feed them on two different levels so that Naughtya wont look at his food and immediately eat it) well... that USED to work, until Naughtya realized she wasn't getting as much Kibble and learned to climb up to the second feeding level to feast on Gimli's leftovers...BAH!!! now she's fat again -_ so I had tried as much as I could with as little time that I have to dedicate to hoovering over them while they eat. So now I split Naughtya's portion into two diff dishes (that way she feels she is eating more) and give Gimli slightly less... but she still tries to steal his food... ENTER: The CatIT Senses Treat Maze!!!
This maze is awesome. I placed a half of a cup of kibble in the center area and the cats watched as the kibble made it's way down. They were intrigued... I would have rated it 5 stars but Gimli figured out he could stick his head over the top opening and eat some kibble (which is ok by me because he's skinny as hell and needs to eat more) but Naughtya is too fat to do that so she has to work for her kibble, which is good.
It sort of makes her THINK she is getting more to eat although now she has to work harder to get it :) I believe this is one of the best food container investments I have made! Keeps both my Kitties happy!
so overall, if you are getting this as a form of entertainment I am sure that will be a failure... I've had this thing for about a week now and because my cats are not allowed to free feast (having a dish full of kibble available at all times) when they get hungry THIS is where they go to get their fix.
If my cats had access to food at all times though, I would see them losing interest in this. But for what I got it for it works wonders :)
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If you're a typical working adult like me, you spend hours away from your furry ones every single weekday. My 2 cats are very sociable and I always felt guilty about leaving them for so long. I always am looking for toys/activities to engage their minds while I'm away.
I can tell you I am VERY pleased I decided to purchase this!
I read the other reviews, positive and negative. There seemed to be a few that stood out the most to me:
1.) The top is open, which allows for some people's cats to see the treats going in the top and have learned to just knock the maze over to get the treats.
2.) There's not enough weight on the bottom to keep it from being knocked over.
3.) it's annoying to listen to the food dropping/food goes everywhere.
Here are some ideas to overcome those issues:
1.) OPEN TOP The minute I introduced my cats to this maze, I Never let them learn about the open top. I had an unused lock&lock container (with the locking tab lid) that fit in that top opening. The container itself fit down into the opening while the lid's tabs kept it from falling through. I put some washers in the container which gave it enough weight to not easily be knocked out. I assembled the maze, put that "makeshift top" on and they never knew about the existence of that opening. Yes some might think it looks a bit goofy, but what do I care? It works perfectly. (Although I wouldn't use anything TOO weighty on top; don't want it to hurt anyone if it is knocked over).
2.) NOT ENOUGH WEIGHT I agree with this, but you can put some sort of weight underneath it, or glue/nail it to a small piece of wood. I actually didn't have to do anything with mine; yes it has been knocked over a few times, but so has Everything else in my house at one time or another, that wasn't nailed to the ground :) Mine may not knock over so easy either, since I use the container on top to conceal the opening; possibly it gives it just enough weight?
3.) ANNOYING TO LISTEN TO/MESSY honestly then, why buy it? You see what it does in the picture. I don't think the purpose of this maze to REPLACE your cat's food dish entirely. If you're feeding them their complete meals out of this every day, I can see how the constant sound and food everywhere might get irritating. Maybe use it for half their meals or only use it for treats?
I still feed mine regularly from their bowls, but I cut back on the amount they receive in their bowls, and then add that portion (the remainder) of their meal to the maze.
It's also a great distraction/reward tool. When I go to leave for work every morning, I take some of their treats and put them in the maze. They are so excited because they get treats... and I am happier that they are not crying at the door as soon as I close it. They are focused on the maze instead.
All that being said; yes it has a few design flaws, but it serves its purpose Very Well. I am very happy I decided to purchase it. It stimulates their minds and is entertaining to watch them figure it out.
