Little Friend Time! Petit dining for your little love...

Lovely and heartfelt, this is a great bowl for smaller dogs. We love the Best Friend inscription in French and the sweet drawing that decorates the inside of the bowl. The shorter design works especially perfectly for dogs with shorter noses!

Please take time to read the Basic Facts about Dogs and Bowls:

The Healthy Choice: You may not have thought, but bowl selection is very important to your pet's overall health and can even effect longevity. We have recently come to understand the effect of plastics on the substances we store in them and the critical exclusion of BPA from storage and service of food and liquids. Chemical leaching can have long-term health effects and this could be especially impactual for pets who have an already relatively short lifespan.

We do know the safety benefits that stainless steel and glazed ceramic can provide. Both substances are easily sterilized and their surfaces do not retain and promote microbial growth as readily as other surfaces. Stainless is used in surgical proceedures for that reason. It stands to reason that a safer selection of materials in feeding and watering bowls for our beloved dogs is a consideration we should take time to employ. While plastics are sometimes colorful, inexpensive, lightweight and convenient, why would one consider utilizing something that is not at least BPA free?

There are definite times when plastic, vinyl, or rubber is the absolute best or only choice. For example, I am not going to carry a stainless bottle or bowl into the field for search and rescue to add additional weight to my already 40 pound pack or for an adventre outing. I will choose, instead a nice rubber or vinyl collapsible bowl and a BPA free water bottle or bladder. owever, when I am able to use stainless or ceramic, I do. While there is no apparent difference made in a once or twice choice over a few days, effects of our daily choices are cumulative and the results over a long period of time can be significant.

The bowls I have presented here are our favorites. They bring safety, ease of use, and in some cases, fun and joy in their design. So functionality and beauty are both accounted in addition to health benefits and customer ratings.

Training Bowls: There are a selection of training bowls that can encourage slower eating. Personally, I like to train slow eating from the very beginning through doing focus and patience in drive exercises, coupled with other shaping techniques. This engages a vital life-long habit and aids in other training too. That said, not everyone wants to spend the time training or knows how to do that type of training. What is imperative to realize is that slow eating promotes much better health and can even save your dog's life.

If you are up for training, you can refer to my training audio and video sections for more information or join me for a workshop, teleconference or private session. I am also sure there are effective trainers in your area to help you. If training for improved eating habits is not an option for you, then the training bowl pictured here might be a good second. In lieu of purchasing a device, there are techniques of putting rocks, or other large heavy objects into a regular bowl that the dog has to eat around, but care should be taken that the rock or object is large enough and that the dog does not chew on it. You can also feed in short, small sections, letting the dog rest in between inhales of food. Whatever your choice, it is important for you to monitor and address the issue of your dog eating too fast.

Fountain Bowls: There are advantages of having a fountain bowl for your dog. They can be esecially helpful for cats who really need to drink to avoid multiple health complications. But dogs also need to drink plenty of water too in order to maintain good health and some dogs, like cats, are not good at drinking regularly. Fountain bowls will often encourage more intake of water for both dogs and cats.

One advantage is that the water is continually moving, so it forms less undesirables. Some fountain bowls come with added filtraion, therefore impurities are being siphoned out of your pet's water to some degree. Another advantage is the natural aereation that a fountain can provide. Aeration is an added health benefit. These are perhaps the reasons that animals usually drink more readily from them.

Now the downsides...fountain bowls are a little more complex to clean, as there are certainly more parts than a regular bowl. There is also the taking apart and putting back together of parts. However, some designs are simple, elegant and clean and assemble with relative ease. New filters have to be purchased, but they are not terribly expensive and last usually a couple of months, depending on the use and by how many animals. However, filters are an additonal step and cost, so a consideration, though most of us would go to great lengths for our furry family.

The motors that make the fountain flow are not always quiet and you do have to plug the thing in somewhere - this can be a consideration for some. While every fountain out there had reveiwed comments of "this motor is so quiet, I can't even tell it is on" to "the motor was so loud I couldn't stand it", this just tells me that either the difference is with people's ability/sensitivity to sound or that motors vary even within a single product.

The last hiccup that you can encounter with a fountain bowl is that your pet does not like it. Some pets love, love, love the flowing water and others do not. Some pets like one type of fountain and not another. It may have to do with the amount of water that flows or the sound that particular fountain makes, but you just have to try to find out. Dogs tend to be less particular than cats.

I do not think there is a perfect product out there for everyone, so if you choose to try a fountain bowl, you need to be prepared that it may or may not work for you and your pet. I do think the health beneifts outweigh the possible little annoyances or inconveniences. Fountain bowls certainly deliver for making most pets drink more water....a habit important to everyone, human and furry alike.

Portable Dispensing: We all have to pack up and go if we want to take advantages of the best adventures in life. Whether going to the park for a short outing or going to the wilderness for a full day or multi-day exxcursion, food or treats and plenty of water should always be with you. To make it easy, there are multiple choices out there for you: bottles, bowls, bottles with built-in bowls, etc.

Think about if you want it to clip to you or fit into a pack in a certain manner before you purchase. If buying plastic, go for the BPA free products first to ensure optimum health for your friend. If on a long outing, dogs need to be able to take a long, deep drink at some point, so bowls are neccessary for this.

We can tend to underestimate the amount of water needed for any outing or situation. Especially since water is heavy to carry, we can tend to pack it up light and not bother. But remember, water is the most important key to life, so you want to always carry more than you think you will need. On search and rescue, I have seen it be the difference of life and death more than once, so never settle for just enough.

At home, water should always be accessible in every situation for your pet. If left in a crate or kennel for more than an hour, there should be water. If that crate or kennel is in direct sun with no shade protection, then water should be ever present and shade and weather protection should be procured asap. If a dog is left in a car even in winter, water should be present.

Portable dispensing of both food and water are important and here, you will again find our favorites. I have multiple bottles and bowls for both me and my dog stuck in everyday bags, overnight packs, vehicles and such. And I have been thankful for them more than once. Those extra water and food containers have saved me time and again. They have seen me through electric and gas outages, through unexpected delays away from home, saved me time when rushing off somewhere, and saved me when the car broke down too. Actually being prepared is so much better than wishing you were.