First, I bought this product for our 2 small dogs, NOT for cats. We have a 8lb chihuahua, and a 12 lb Brussels Griffon. I mainly got this for the Brussels. Reason being, is that the particular breed it a freaking disastrous mess when it comes to getting a sip of water. Let me tell you, if you think your dog is messy at drinking water, it's probably not, and you might be surprised at how much worse it can get. Let me elaborate a little.... When my Brussels decides it's time to ruin the house, she goes over to the water bowl. The particular breed has no elongated snout, they are smush faced like a pug....but even a pug has a longer snout than her. Her face is literally as flat as a board. Because of this, when she eats/drinks food, she is forced to put her WHOLE entire face/head into the waterer/feeder. Well ok, this wouldn't be such a big deal....but Brussels Griffons have a long beard and mustache (might as well be the lumberjack hipster of dogs). Because of the long hair all over their face, combined with basically having to dip their head into the food/water bowls...you end up with this disaster of a dog face and floor. So if we focus just on her drinking water, her beard gets entirely soaked. I would say it's akin to throwing your towel into a body of water, picking it up, and then walking around your house with it while it pours/drips water from itself. So when she is done drinking water, I usually know she's drank water because there's a huge pool of it around the watering bowl, and I know everywhere she's been in the house because there's a water trail to track her every move for the next 5-10 minutes. After maybe 25-30 minutes, her face is dry again....but of course not after rubbing it profusely all over the leather couches and throw blankets. What a little hussy...she knows what she's doing. When we look at the food aspect of things, it merely exacerbates the issues. How could eating food turn the problems up to 11 you ask? Well, it goes a little something like this....come dinner time, this fat little hoover vacuum of a roomba I call my dog, get's food crumbs stuck all in her hipstery beard/mustache (hey, just like a real hipster!). She is always thirsty after a good vacuuming session in her food bowl, so she goes straight for the water. She then proceeds to dunk the trashbag of a face she has into the water, swirl it around for good measure, and to ensure that as many crumbs and food particles as possible make it into the water. So now, I have a pooch with a dripping wet, dog food face rubbing her face all over my house while trying to water board the downstairs tile. Mmm...gotta love those kisses. And on top of that, the water bowl I JUST cleaned now looks like a scummy mess. Instantly....without fail. So....as you can clearly see, I have quite the issue dealing with this plague of a puppy. No amount of grooming can help, there's just no solution even with an x-groomer as my fiance....until now! I have now discovered the Petsafe stainless steel drinkwell 360 fountain, and it's been handed to me by the almighty doggy gods themselves! What attracted me to this device were several features: 1) Stainless steel - I was very pleased to see this came in a nice stainless steel build. Since my father is a veterinarian, and owned his own practice, I have definitely come to appreciate all aspects of using stainless for food/water bowls. It stays cleaner longer, is sturdy, and also it just looks good! 2) Fountain - I was really looking for a fountain of some kind. I had this crazy idea that maybe the Brussels would learn to drink from the fountain spout, and that this beard issue would be alleviated. 3) Filtration - Again because of the amount of food that gets perpetually delivered from bowl to trough, I wanted something that could clean the water that wasn't done by my hand once a day Those were really the key elements I was looking for, and I found them all and more in this particular fountain. I love the fact that there's a pre-filter for the pump to protect the pump from major crumbage. It has worked excellent in filtering out the major mess. The charcoal filters give the secondary line of defense, and clean very well. Because of how clean the water is coming out of the fountain spout, it only took my Brussels a couple weeks to learn where the cleanest water was coming from. Now she exclusively drinks from the water fountain...and get this, NO MOP FACE!!!!! My prayers have been answered by the puppy gods. And because her face doesn't get entirely drenched, the amount of food going into the main water bowl has been dramatically reduced. This has provided a MUCH more sanitary and easy to handle environment for the dogs, and most importantly for me! I'm no longer a slave to the water bowl. It's quite odd to be able to just fill the water up every 4 or 5 days (when I hear the pump slurping lightly) and not have to rigorously clean a disgusting water trough. For the most part, things remain very clean for a couple weeks straight. The food crumbs do eventually build up, but the filters do their job wonderfully, and the dogs seem to continue to enjoy the water out of the spout. I have not noticed any degradation in terms of flow speed when it comes to the pump over the course of a couple weeks. This thing, in my opinion, is rock solid in terms of performance. Cons: Even though I'm rating this 5 stars, there's always room for improvement. What I would really like to see improved, is an attempt at removing as much of the plastic as possible. Some things like the pump obviously are going to be plastic. But the clips to hold the interior bowl could probably be redesigned in a way that would allow for stainless steel clips to be used instead. Same going for the fountain portion that contains the spout and charcoal filter. Another thing that would be really nice, would be a re-usable pyrex glass filter instead of the throw aways. That way you could simply clean the glass, replace the charcoal, and re-use the device without adding plastic to garbage facilities. I may attempt to make my own when I have time to focus on such a project. Conclusion: I was a bit hesitant to drop so much on a pet fountain....with the possibility being that I would just end up with a fancy device that's purpose was never fulfilled because the dogs couldn't figure it out. That is not the case what-so-ever. These guys figured it out, and have benefited greatly from this purchase. Most importantly, me and my house are benefiting now too! I couldn't have asked for more from a fountain...it has squashed the most major deficiencies of the Brussels breed. Now I don't have to worry about her jumping on the couch with a dripping wet face to try to come and give me those lovely wet food kisses anymore. This device really isn't designed for any dogs much larger than mine, maybe up to at 15 lb dog. I would call that about max size for this bowl. So if you have an overgrown cat masquerading as a dog, this will be pretty perfectly sized. All in all, I am thoroughly impressed and have found a permanent solution. If you think my review was helpful, please click "yes" below! If you have any questions/comments, feel free to ask and I'll respond as soon as I can. Please excuse any "cheekiness" and "sarcasm" used in the review, as it is merely used to elaborate points and entertain readers. This review is a true depiction of my actual opinion of the product.
