Yes, Basti has figured out how the feeder works! How I know? Well, one morning I came downstairs and her food bowl was empty. And I was absolutely sure that when I went to bed, there was food still in her bowl. This basically means two good things: one, she knows how to operate the feeder and isn't afraid of it anymore and two, (and that is a huge accomplishment), she will eat when we're not around! Since then, we've heard her eat while standing in the kitchen and we're out of sight. So no more 'holding her paw' when she eats and we can leave the house for more than a few hours at a time. I do so love technology! Below the video of how she does it; I've fast-forwarded the part where she's eating because it's not the most interesting part of the video.
There was one strange occurance and I think Basti knew before we did; that bright light close by the feeder will actually confuse the chip scanner and cause the feeder to stay closed. A few weeks back, we noticed that during the day Basti would go up to the feeder and it would open, but in the evening, she would go up to it and simply wait for us to open it for her. Initially, that was puzzling us: why wouldn't she try? When we realized she had been eating at night, the only difference between day, night and evening was that in the evening, we turned on the lamp that stood nearby...so that had to be the cause. When we switched lamps, Basti quickly realized that she didn't need to wait for us anymore and now everything is working smoothly. Mission accomplished!
