I beg your pardon?

Unlike Blinky, my monster of a red cat who was taught by his previous owner that begging was a perfectly acceptable way to get extra food, my two ladies have not been raised that way perse.

Basti 'begging'..

Yes, they do beg in their own cute way but it's never over the top and in your face. Nike will start making noise around 9 AM to get her treats (any other time I'll give her treats and she'll be suspicious of my motives..we might be going to the vet for all she knows) and Basti has her own weird way of begging which looks more like a staring contest.

Sometimes, in the morning, Basti will be going through her food like there is no tomorrow...and by 9 or 10 AM, the first round of food will be gone. I usually won't give her anything more until around 4 PM but she's not apposed to giving it a try. We'll then have a staring contest which I usually lose because I feel sorry for her. Sometimes I try to trick into giving more healthier options that her dry food but she's usually not that interested...

I still think that even though I haven't raised my two girls to beg, they have still  managed to come up with their own way to squeeze food out of me...but it's more like the Lady than like the Tramp.

From plastic to ceramic

The one thing I still can't imagine is how a company such as Sureflap, creator of pretty incredible things, can put plastic bowls in their products. They probably have no clue that plastic becomes porous after a while and will accumulate bacteria that can make your cat sick..something I really don't need with an IBD cat.

So, I figured that having her eat out of plastic for a little while was no big problem but I also knew that I needed to find ceramic bowls. With the measurements of these things being so much out of the ordinary and not being someone that could work with clay, I found a pottery man who would make the bowls for me.

I love swirly patterns...

Mister Bob Ernsting from Zuidoostbeemster was really a sweetheart; I gave him one of the plastic bowls for measurements but didn't show him the actual feeder. When he called to say they were done, I brought the feeder with me and as it turned out, the bowls were too high... He then realised how little wiggle room he had. The second batch of bowls fit perfectly however and thankfully he wasn't too upset for having to do them again. They are now 3.2 cm high (1.25 inch) and 11 cm (4.3 inch) in diameter.

Maybe it was imagination, but from the moment I put the ceramic bowls in, Basti was a much happier camper! There are some disadvantages; I cannot put too much in the bowl. The plastic bowls were bigger so putting one day of food in her ceramic bowl, is pushing it. One the other hand, Basti doesn't seem to mind because now she won't have to push her food around.  And because she's eating like crazy anyway (and I need to pace her), she gets smaller portions 3 times a day.