Neater Feeder Dog Dish
The Newfoundland dog is a remarkable creature – huge, affectionate, huge, laid back, huge, amusing, huge, strong and huge, it has the killer instincts of a sofa cushion and the table manners of a hand grenade. At least, ours does.
The wall behind her food dish has been repainted annually since she arrived, and the trim replaced on several occasions. It’s unclear which of the constituents of dog food mixed with canine saliva can decompose wood, but one of them’s really quite effective.
The Neater Feeder is a dog dish clearly designed for Newfies. This said, it’s available in a variety of sizes – you can even fill one with cat food, although in our house, doing so would signal the imminent demise of the cat in question. The only defense a cat has against a full-grown Newfoundland is managing to get itself caught in the dog’s throat.
Unlike traditional dishes, the Neater Feeder consists of a substantial plastic battlement that surrounds the stainless steel dishes lurking within it. Even truly monstrous dogs will be hard pressed to fling food or digestive enzymes past this impenetrable obstruction. Your walls will remain whatever color you originally painted them.
The Neater Feeder can also deal with animals that drink like a drunken wildebeest… and, yes, this too describes a Newfoundland. It consists of an upper section to cradle the aforementioned dishes, resting upon a lower reservoir to catch discarded fluids. The whole works being made of robust, washable plastic, you can take it outside and blast it back to civility with a power washer when it grows unbearably encrusted.
Finally, the Neater Feeder elevates its dishes somewhat from their traditional altitude – to wit, at floor level – which is said to be more comfortable for the animals chowing down before it. I can’t say that our dog has expressed any detectable level of reluctance to assail its food dish, no matter what height it was presented at. None the less, no one really wants to share a house with a two-hundred-pound dog that’s anything other than at peace with its dinner.
The Neater Feeder cost less than the paint and trim the dog dissolved before the Neater Feeder’s arrival. This being Canada, it probably cost less than the eco-taxes on them. Unless you had the forethought to choose a polyester resin dog when last you went shopping for a pet, this may be among the most useful dog accessories you’ll ever own. If you eschewed a polyester resin dog for a Newfoundland… as we did… you’ll quickly come to appreciate that it will pay for itself just in the volume of dog food that no longer gets flung into the next township, and hence wasted.