Tupelo came home on a Saturday in the middle of March, and by Tuesday I knew two things about him. He was as sweet as could be, and he ate like the food was about to be taken away. I set his dinner down in a plain bowl, turned to rinse a dish, and turned back to a clean bowl and a dog licking the floor. Under a minute. He also came up swallowing air, which worried me more than the speed did.
The second week I bought a medium Outward Hound Fun Feeder Slo Bowl, and at his arrival checkup I asked my vet about fast eating. She said a slow bowl was a reasonable thing to try. That is the whole of my authority here, one dog and one honest report. What follows is ten reasons the Outward Hound bowl has stayed his only food bowl since, written for anyone whose dog thinks the day revolves around the next meal.
Ten small fixes to the fastest dinner in the house
The medium Fun Feeder holds two cups of dry or wet food, is dishwasher safe, and has been Tupelo's only bowl since his second week home.
Amazon See the bowl on Amazon →Dinner stopped being a race
With his plain bowl, Tupelo was finished before I had put the dish soap down. On the Fun Feeder he has to work around the maze to reach the kibble, and the meal lasts long enough that I can stand and watch him instead of turning my back. The listing says the maze is designed to slow eating up to ten times. I never timed it with a stopwatch. I just know he comes up for air now instead of coming up gasping.
His nose gets a job before his stomach does
A food motivated dog is not naughty. He is built to work for a living and he gets bored when the work takes nine seconds. The maze gives him a small problem to solve at every meal. After he finishes he licks his chops and goes to lie in the sun by the sliding door instead of pacing the kitchen and staring at the cabinet where the food lives. The bowl does not train him. It just makes dinner take a little effort.
It holds a full meal, so nothing gets topped up
The listing puts the capacity at two cups and says it takes dry or wet food. Tupelo is thirty two pounds and his portion fits with room to spare. That matters more than it sounds. A bowl that only holds half a meal forces you to add more halfway through, and adding more halfway through is exactly when a fast eater starts gulping. I scoop, I set it down, and I do not think about it again until the next meal.
It sits two inches tall, so his ears stay clean
Spaniel ears and deep bowls do not mix. With his old bowl, Tupelo's ears went into the kibble and came out greasy, and he would stop and shake his head halfway through. This one is two inches tall, low enough that his ears hang past the rim instead of in the food. I am not wiping them down after every meal anymore. It is a small thing and I notice it twice a day.
One piece, nothing to take apart
No lid, no insert, no removable maze. Nothing to wash separately and nothing to lose behind the radiator. The listing lists the operation as manual, and that is exactly what it is. I put food in, he eats, I pick it up. There is no assembly and no setting to get wrong at six in the morning before I have had my coffee, which for me is the real feature. Nothing about it needs explaining to a dog sitter either.
He finished a bowl in well under a minute the old way. Now he comes up for air between mouthfuls, looks at me, and goes back down. That is the whole result I wanted.
It goes in the dishwasher, maze and all
The listing says dishwasher safe and I have tested that more times than I can count. After a wet food meal it goes on the top rack and comes out clean without me chasing the maze with a bottle brush. A bowl with ridges is miserable to hand wash, so this is not a small line on the label. It is the reason the bowl actually gets washed instead of getting a rinse and a wipe.
It is quiet on a tile floor before sunrise
My kitchen floor is tile and a metal bowl on tile at six in the morning is a sound that goes through the whole house. This one is plastic and weighs eight ounces, so when Tupelo nudges it around it makes a dull sound instead of a clang. I live alone and I still notice. The quiet mornings are the ones where he goes back to his bed after breakfast instead of pacing the hall. That is worth more to me than any feature on the label.
There are two slower levels if your dog needs them
The listing says the bowl comes in three slow levels, Slow, Slower and Slowest, across several sizes and maze patterns. Mine is the Slow level, which suited a dog who ate fast but not frantically. If your dog is a genuine inhaler, or your vet has raised a concern about gulping, the slower levels exist and you can choose one of those when you order. I would start where I started and only go deeper if the first try was not enough.
Eight ounces, so it moves where I need it
It weighs eight ounces and measures about eight and a half inches across, which means I can carry it out to the back steps with one hand while I hold the door with the other. That is how I found out I like feeding him outside on nice mornings. The footprint also means it sits in the cabinet beside his treats without fighting the mixing bowls for space. A one dog house does not need a whole shelf of dishes.
One bowl, one routine, twice a day
For his first month Tupelo was a little anxious about everything, and the most predictable part of his day was breakfast and dinner in the same bowl in the same corner. I am not going to tell you a bowl settled his nerves. What I will tell you is that he settled faster in our house when the meals were boring and repeatable, and the Outward Hound bowl made that easy. Same bowl, same spot, twice a day, no decisions. If you have ever adopted an anxious dog, you know how much of settling is just repetition.
What I'd Skip
I would skip the spare bowl. I nearly ordered a second one for the back porch and then realized this one is light enough to carry out and back, so the spare would have lived in the cabinet and gathered dust. I would also skip the snuffle mat, mostly because Tupelo shreds fabric when he is wound up and I already have one thing to wash. I would skip buying the large size on the theory that he might grow into it, since he is full grown at thirty two pounds and the medium holds his portion. And if your dog gulps hard enough to bring food back up, or your vet has mentioned anything about his swallowing or his stomach, skip the internet and ask your vet first, the way I did.
A dinner that takes longer than thirty seconds
For a dog who lives for his next meal, that is most of the work. The Outward Hound Fun Feeder Slo Bowl is the medium two cup size, dishwasher safe, and it is still the only food bowl in my kitchen.
Amazon See the bowl on Amazon →