PetSafe SlimCat Interactive Feeder - Combines Play with Mealtime - Adjustable Portions - BPA-Free Plastic - Slow Feeder for Digestion - Lightweight, Dishwasher-Safe Toy - Blue

I read about 100 reviews of this product before I finally sprung for it and bought it (I'm a grad student....$6 can be up to two meals if I try hard enough!) and all my worries have now gone out the window. I have a 4-month-old kitten, Kiki; and I have had this product for about 24 hours now.This is going to be a long review, so here's the major thing that I was halfway expecting that did not happen: THIS IS NOT AN EXERCISE BALL. By "exercise ball" I mean something like a ping-pong ball or tennis ball that kitty will play with herself like she's trying out for the itty bitty kitty soccer league. I sort of thought it might be, due to the product advertising it as a cat weight-loss aid, but in fact most cats (especially fat cats) will bat at this with their paws and push it with their nose, not smack it across the room. It is not going to travel very far per smack and your cat will not be running around after it. I actually consider this a plus because if she were sending it across the room with every push, it might drop food where she wouldn't find it, but instead she pushes it a little way, sniffs around it for food, then pushes it again. You can see this in the several very excellent video reviews that already exist for this product. Every other benefit of this product that it claimed/that others reported in their reviews has now been validated by my own experience.Here are the things I was worried about that did not happen:Worry #1: That Kiki would not be able to figure out how to use it. She's a pretty smart little cat, but I was afraid she'd dislike the idea of working for her food or something, and keep going back to her bowl. Instead, I filled up this ball with 1/2 cup (=4oz., the daily suggested amount) of her dry kitten kibble (it has pretty tiny x-shaped pieces, <1-cm square and 3-mm thickness), twisted the ball so that the holes looked big enough to let a few kibbles out at once, and put it on the floor. I rattled it around quite a bit as I was filling it/carrying it so she was very interested and seemed to have figured out before I even put it down that her food was in there. As soon as it touched the ground she poked it with her nose, it moved about half a foot away from her, a couple kibbles fell out, and she was munching. I didn't even have to take away her food bowl! (That would have been hard because it's attached to her water bowl =P And by the way, she still drinks her water from the usual place.)Worry #2: That Kiki would be too smart for the ball; i.e., she would manage to get her food out too fast and still be eating it all at once. Since she got the hang of it so quickly the first time, I made the holes smaller the next time I fed her with it (basically as small as possible while still allowing kibble to come out). It's pretty difficult to get the kibble out with the holes this size actually -- I can shake the ball gently with the holes pointing downward and have nothing come out. Kiki still rolls the ball around the floor and the kibble now comes out at a rate of 1 kibble every 10-15 seconds. This does not deter her from continuing to push the ball around, and because it requires a non-trivial amount of effort to get food, she won't continue to eat after she's no longer hungry.Worry #3: That it would not be able to hold enough food to last her 1-2 days (I bought the ball primarily because I'm going on a short trip soon and she'll be all by herself for 1.5 days. For longer trips I'd ask someone to come feed her, but this seemed like a better solution for just a 2-day outing). Last night to test the capacity I filled the ball with 1/2-cup around 8pm, gave it to her, woke up the next day at 2pm (long story) and went to check on her and there was still food in the ball. WIN.Worry #4: That the ball would make a huge mess by leaving lost kibble pieces all over the house. We have hardwood floors so it wouldn't have been such a huge problem anyway, but I was concerned about her pushing the ball under the couch (she always loses her smaller balls under there) because that would be a pain to clean. In reality, two things happen: first, Kiki follows the ball closely with her nose -- if she pushes it and nothing falls out, she sniffs all around the ball before she pushes it again. She's basically a vacuum cleaner with this thing. I left her with a full ball for 18 hours and all I found afterward was 1 forgotten piece of kibble in a corner under the sink (which I brought to her and she promptly gobbled it up). Second, the fact that the ball does not travel very far effectively limits it to whichever room you put it down in. I usually leave Kiki with it in the kitchen and by the time she's done with it it's still in the kitchen. After 18 hours I found her with it about 6 feet into the living room, but there was no breadcrumb trail of kibbles behind her or anything like that =PSo, maybe all this tells you is that I worry a lot, but basically this product delivers. It limits the amount of food my cat can eat at once, stimulates her instinct to hunt for food (AND reproduces the natural reward for hunting: feeding!), reduces/eliminates begging, keeps her out of trouble by distracting her for long stretches of time, and prevents the bulging stomach I used to see after her feeding times. It's difficult for me to weigh her but just by looking at her I would guess she has already lost 0.5lbs (and she only weighs about 5lbs so this is excellent) and it is all in the belly bulge area. She seems more active too (running up and down the stairs, asking me to chase her, running after her ball toys, etc).For those inclined to criticize:I know she is a kitten and a lot of people free-feed their kittens because they are supposed to be growing at a tremendous rate for the first several months of life, but the other thing to remember is that what you expose your kitty to before the age of 6 months is what she is going to be expecting for the rest of her life. I don't want to teach her bad habits (like expecting a full bowl of food 24/7) just because I can't resist her sad-kitty-whimper face. I can always tell if she is actually hungry or if she is just begging for lack of anything better to do because if she's just bored she'll stop begging as soon as I pick up a toy.

This is one of the most amazing cat products I have ever bought. So simple, keeps my cat entertained by herself, easy to use, cleans in dishwasher, and CHEAP! I bought this because my cat is starting to have behavior problems from me being in vet school all day every day. This keeps her active during the day when I dont have time to play her with. She could also probably lose a lb or so.There are already many great responses so I'll keep my review to responding to some of the people who gave it 1 star (very surprising).1) If your cat is not interested in it: Twist the ball so the bigger holes are open, that way food comes out easily at first to train them how it works. As they begin to get more comfortable with it, make the holes smaller so it is harder to get the food out and they are forced to play with it longer.2) If your cat knows how it works but is not interested in it: I'm sure if your cat was hungry enough, they would play with it to get food. If your cat is being overfed, they won't be hungry and they won't want to work to get the food. If you make the holes too tiny and it is impossible to get more than 1 piece out in 5 min, I'm sure I would give up too!! You have to be patient with this product and your pet and find the right "balance". If they don't play with it, and you just feed them regularly, then they know you will feed them anyway if they dont try to play with it! Also, if you put moist treats in it at first or something more special than just dry food that will peak their interest. Also, make sure you adjust the holes each time depending what food/treats you put in. It makes a huge diff and if one time you make a mistake and your cat tries for 30 min to get the food out but you didn't adjust the hole size they will probably be discouraged to ever touch it again.3) The instructions do come in the ball to begin with. If you can't open the ball the get the instructions, then I wonder about your ability think lol. The side of the ball has a circle with a little handle sticking out, you twist it to the left (righty tighty, lefty loosey) and it opens up!! The side of the ball has a little notch that you can lock and unlock. This is what you use to adjust the size of the holes. Look at it carefully, there are big holes and small holes. You can also make it so half of the big holes are open, etc. The lock works well and the top fits well inside of it. It has never broken or opened up when my cat plays with it.4) If your food spills out all over the floor: look at the size of the holes!! Make sure you adjust it according to the food you have. Easy fix! One person commented on ants, well your cat should eat all of the food up unless they are overfed and not hungry. If the ants still come to the ball even if there is no food then I would just suggest using the ball when you are home only so you can pick it up off the floor when they are done. But I think the real problem is that you have ants...No need to rate a product extremely poor because you have another problem that isn't directly related to the productThis is a great product and easy to use. It is also one of the cheapest cat toys i have ever bought! Ive spent a lot of money on random toys for my cat to play with when I'm gone but she is never interested unless I am there to make things "move" for her. She now has a reason to play with a toy without my help and sometimes I even catch her playing with it at night when she knows there is no food in it but she is super hyper and likes to roll it all over the place. The ball is really smooth on the outside so one paw at it and it rolls well. This is important because other ball toys I have bought dont roll well on carpet.I'm sure there may be some cats it never works with, but I assume the percentage is low. Id say maybe only very old or sick cats who cant be active at all. Otherwise, any other cat will eventually show interest if you use the product right and make an effort to combat the problems that I listed above.