Having a pet in the family seems as common in the United States as having children. In fact there are more homes with pets than there are with children because of the number of people that keep animals once they are done raising children and because of the number of young single people that adopt a pet. We spend millions of dollars annually to care for our animal friends. There are many exotic pets that people have tried, but by far the most popular pets continue to be the dog and cat.
The argument over which of these animals makes the best pet has been fought since both were domesticated. As long as a dog lover and cat lover remain alive the argument will not be settled. The one issue of having a pet is taking care of them during vacation. This is where the argument of having a cat or dog gives the advantage point to cats. If you have a clean litter box an auto pet feeder and a large bowl of water a cat can be left for several days on their own. They may not be very happy when you come home and may shun you in the way that cats have perfected through the years, but their care needs will have been taken care of. Unfortunately with a dog they need to be taken outside on a routine basis to urinate and defecate. This means wither hiring someone to come to your house to walk the dog twice a day of boarding the dog at a kennel. We had a neighbor that was willing to come over and take our dogs for a run in the woods in the morning and evening; however we thought it would be easier if we bought the auto pet feeder so he would not have to deal with their food. We have a water spigot on the outside of the house for him to bring fresh water daily. So we thought that if we filled the auto pet feeder he would be able to come over and take care of the dogs in a short period of time.
We learned that we should have taught the dogs how to manage the auto pet feeder prior to leaving on vacation. Our dogs are used to getting fed twice a day. They are fed at the same time and quickly eat their food. They are not used to having a supply of food available to them. Our neighbor told us that they ate all the food we left in the first day. Both dogs were feeling sick from over eating and our neighbor had to go buy another bag of food because we had locked the shed where we keep the food supply. The auto pet feeder is a great device, but like anything else the animals need to be taught how to regulate themselves using it.
3/08/2015
News