Picking up pet food bowls: How can my friend easily pick up her dog’s food bowl?
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How can my friend easily pick up her dog’s food bowl?
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Products mentioned in our answer below are provided to inform you about the types of technologies available and have not been evaluated by CanAssist. They may or may not be appropriate for your particular situation. Some technologies and devices may require an in-person assessment. Speak with your health care provider for additional information and support.
For many pet owners, their pets are family and caring for those pets has so many benefits – especially for seniors. However, bending over to pick up a food bowl can be difficult, and even dangerous for some. Thankfully, there are some low-cost strategies and innovative products to support senior pet owners to care for their pets.
This article, Dog Care When You’re Down, published in the Whole Dog Journal makes some clever suggestions to address challenges with food and water bowls. The article mentions placing the bowls inside Easter Baskets, the large loop handle will require less bending to pick up. For water bowls, the author suggests using a narrow spout on a watering can to top up with out bending over.
A number of products have also come out to address this challenge, we have listed a few of them below:
- Easy to Feed Pet Bowl by Graceful Pets is a bowl with a long, detachable handle. This product costs about $25 (USD), plus a shipping fee.
- No Bend Pet Bowl by TOYPOPOR (at Amazon Canada) is a set of two bowls linked a by a long extendable pole with a handle on the top. This product costs about $30 (CDN).
- KittyKaddy Double Diner by KittyKaddy (at weehelpers.com) is a set of two stainless steel bowls that fit into a plastic tray which has a removable pole and ball handle. This product costs about $20 (USD), plus a shipping fee.
- Easy Reach Dog Diner by Petmate (at Amazon Canada) is an elevated platform with inserts for two steel dishes. Consider the height of your pet, and whether or not they could comfortably access food and water from the elevated platform. This product costs about $48 (CDN).
Another opportunity you may like to explore is using a telescoping magnetic reacher to pick up steel dishes. For example, the Telestik Reacher by Pik Stik (at Healthcare Solutions) has a small magnet at the end of a telescoping pole. Please note that this device can “pick up most metal items up to one pound” so it may not work if the dish is full. This product is available from healthcaresolutions.ca and costs about $20 (CDN).
Finally, you may be interested in using automatic feeders, particularly when feeding occurs multiple times throughout the day.
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