Do you give your pets clean bowls?
10 days ago by Boomer Humor Doomergod to c/asklemmy
A while backed I figured that if I like eating from clean dishes my pets would too. So I got some cheap enamel metal bowls and use clean ones for my dog and cat.
Anybody else do this?
ETA: I’m not weird and I’m happy all your pets get clean dishes. It was weird for me growing up.
Humans lick each others buttholes.
Theres already one serial butt sniffer out there we don't need more.
People put their fingers in all kinds of places - door handles, shoelaces, buttcracks, nostrils... and we greet strangers by touching their hands.
Not too far removed from butt sniffing, really.
You could buy Meta glasses.
If you're lucky.
Dogs eat shit and barf and dead things. They are the RFK Jr. of the pet world.
Hmm, I use the same plate multiple days in a row as long as the food was fairly dry.
Cats can also eat raw meat without much concern for bacteria. Their digestive tract is much smaller than a humans, and it processes much faster, leaving little time for bacteria to infect their gut. That's why wild animals survive without cooking their food. Humans and cats are too different to compare when it comes to diet
I mean, she would also eat a 3 day old rotting dead bird. Would you?
I used to wash the cats' water dish every day, and as long they ate all their dry food, those dishes would get done too.
The hounds were super messy, so both dishes at both meals.
The wildlife gets new dishes every morning.
I'm sure they all could handle the grime, but they deserve as good as I can give them.
Do you trea their dishes like human dishes, replacing them with every meal? Do you have more than one bowl for them?
for our cat, the foodplate gets replaced every meal, the water bowl once per day (every other meal, usually dinner)
our dog's bowls get swapped out (we have multiple sets) after every meal and round out the dishwasher load mostly (not out of gunk buildup per se)
Our old girl Chloe (18 - I call her Kitty Bear) is blind now (poor little thing), and spends most of her day on her bed on the couch next to my wife. We feed her on a small plate of food that we bring to her bed, and her dishes get washed after every use. When she is thirsty, she gently puts a paw on my wife's arm, and my wife holds a cup of water to her mouth.
Nothing is too good for our sweet girl. She's the last one standing of a beautiful cat family that lived with us all these years. It started when a big steady tomcat we named Jake befriended my son, moved in, decided we were acceptable, and then went and got his beautiful Siamese girlfriend Maggie (I called her Mama Bear), and their three kittens. No humans were consulted in these decisions.
Chloe (I call her Kitty Bear) is the last one. We wash her food and water dishes every day.
This is so sweet. You are good humans, I can see why you were picked.
We always felt privileged to have such a wonderful cat family to watch grow. They were more entertaining than cable tv.
I have cats. Their bowls get cleaned once a day. Their water glasses are rinsed out once a day and go through the dishwasher once a week. Yes, I have a special set of glassware that my cats drink from.
Clean the bowl after every meal? Even just dry dog food? …no
My dog licks his metal food bowl clean after every meal, regardless of wet or dry food. When I had another dog, he'd lick her bowl clean too, when she was done eating. I give the bowl a good rinse before filling it at every meal, then wash it with soap and water maybe once every couple weeks.
Same with the metal water bowl. Every meal, I dump out whatever water is still left in it, give it a good rinse, then refill with fresh water. Then I do a soap and water clean every two weeks or so.
I live out in the countryside, so we have well water with lots of minerals in it. My dad used to just top off the dogs' water bowl every day and it started forming a calcium mineral ring along the top edge. Now that I rinse it a couple times daily, it stays pristine. No more water rings.
My dog is also an indoor dog, so the cleaner I keep his food/water bowls, the less germs and bacteria he spreads around the house. I don't have to fend him off if he wants to lick hands or faces now.
We don't change / clean the food bowls or water dish daily but for convince the cat has the same (small side) plates as we use and it all goes in the dishwasher.
Also the cat assumes all and any glasses with water in them are shared. He also drinks from just about any water source he finds outside in the garden - so he's not picky.
All uncovered glasses of water belong to the cat.
I thought this was common knowledge.
(Real talk: I almost lost my half-feral asshole because he wasn’t drinking enough water. Make sure all your animals have plenty.)
We use small plates from our dinner china to feed our pets and wash them every time they're fed
I clean their bowls with hot soapy water as part of the feeding routine twice a day.
For the wet food, yes. And it just so happens that it's not a bowl either: My cats happen to eat from these fancy desert plates we have but never use:
They're low enough for them to easily access the food, they're perfectly sized for the amount they eat, and they clean up nicely in the dishwasher at the end of the day.
The dry food bowl, on the other hand, is a basic metal bowl. They clean it well themselves.
We feed dry and wet, the wet bowls get rinsed out/cleaned twice a day and the dry supplemental food about once a week. The water fountain gets it every two weeks when the filter is replaced.
Yeah it's not a burden since we have a dishwasher. They eat off the same plates we do.
Water fountain once a week, has two disposable filters to change out after a hot water scrubbing.
Yep! We use plastic kid plates and bowls for him. They go straight into the dishwasher.
We also use paper plates for his wet food sometimes because that stuff glues itself to the plates and sometimes we just don't have the bandwidth to clean his plates properly (like after a surgery or during an illness).
like. we don't have multiple bowls but we clean them between feeding and like once a day for the water.
Our old cat (she passed, 21 years old) started getting chin acne, so we got a spare set of metal bowls that fit in the stand we used. Spare bowls in the cupboard would go into the stand, bowls in the stand would go to the dishwasher, then after it was run would go into the cupboard. Having spares definitely helps, especially if they're dishwasher safe
Some of my pets will shit in their bowls, I don't think they are at all concerned with the cleanliness of their tableware.
...like dogs don't eat shit and dead animals in the park.
Right? Animals lick their buttholes, they aren't concerned about the cleanliness of a bowl.
Now thats some classy bathroom art.
No I don't give 'em clean bowls but I do wash them every day...
Occasionally, when there's enough gunk for it to be unsightly. What does ETA mean?
"Edited To Add: ", to clarify what has been added to the post after people started responding. Editing without making the distinction can be seen as trying to make people's responses look silly or unnecessary.
...or "Estimated Time of Arrival", depending on context.
Sure, but only every couple of weeks. They're on dry food only because they don't really like wet food (they have a nibble then leave it until it goes horrible), so the bowls don't get grimy quickly - one of my cats is a fat bastard and licks the bowl that had dry food in.
Cats' digestive systems are designed to cope with loads of raw, pathogen-ridden meat, so a few old crumbs of kibble won't bother them. They can get irritated skin if it contacts a slightly greasy bowl so that's something to watch out for.
Almost all dry food is absolute garbage for your cat. Feed them wet food, it's way healthier. And of course theyd rather eat the junk food. That's basically what you are saying. "My cats like junk food so that's all I feed them, and I don't wash their bowls." Gross!
Wild felines are use to eating parasite ridden meat. Cats have been domesticated for thousands and thousands of years, lots of cats get sick and die from eating things they shouldn't outside. You sound very well intentioned and I'm sure you love your cats. I had to learn the hard way when one of my last cats got diabetes and needed shots of insulin twice a day, along with a veterinarian specialist with whom I consulted consistently to keep him healthy and alive. I learned a lot about keeping the little fluffy friends healthy and was probably doing exactly what you are doing now. Middle of the road hard food with free feeding? You probably just keep the bowl topped up and they graze whenever? Sounds about right if you have plump little fur baby. Look, I'm not trying to be mean or win Internet points at all. I fucking LOVE cats, like for real. My two babies are my fucking world. It's expensive, but I feed them the best grain free wet food I can find, and their treats are just freeze dried raw chicken and salmon bits. We give them a dry food very rarely when we are going to be away and miss a meal or two, if it's longer, we have someone that's stops by and gives them wet food. THEY LOVE the dry food, but it's really not healthy for them, seriously, ask any vet. I want the best for all our little furry friends and something that means listening to them cry for treats for twenty minutes and not give in, because I want them as healthy as possible to be around with me for as long as possible. They deserve! Your cats deserve it! YOU DESERVE IT FRIEND!
I have asked vets several times about diet, none had any concerns about them being fed dry food, or even only dry food. They can't free feed though because one is a fat bastard.
If I were to feed them wet food I'd have to feed them tiny quantities 10 times a day for them to not starve. Every so often I feed them an offcut of meat or fish from human food, and most of the time they flop it out of the bowl onto the floor, push it around, lick it, and then abandon it.
Yes, I took pathology courses for my degree.
Anyone that doesn't clean them at least once a day is somewhere on the stupid<->abusive spectrum.
Do you often leave the raw meat you feed them out for days while covered in bacterial slobber?
I don't feed my animals raw meat. I am saying cats, and all wild carnivores, eat raw meat. Sometimes animals that have been dead and scavenged already.
Regardless, humans do not eat hardly any raw meat for much too high a risk of disease. I am saying that animals have different digestive tracts, so if they're okay to eat raw meat, and drink water from anywhere they can find it in the wild, they'd be okay with a water bowl that has had water in it for a few days.
It's absurd to say someone is either stupid or abusive for not cleaning a water bowl daily
I see you're on the stupid end of the spectrum.
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My pets lick their buttholes.
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