Self Sufficient Pets!

When we went to New York in June my nephew, Austin, was watching our cats for us. He did a great job and I trusted him to do it well. However, they were planning on joining us in NY for the long 4th of July weekend. I didn't want to find someone else to watch the cats during that time so I decided to try to make them self sufficient for those four days.

This is the water fountain I bought on amazon.com. It holds enough water for my cats for about a week. Lately my dogs have been drinking out of it too, but I won't complain because it still lasts about three days with two dogs and three cats drinking out of it.

This is the automatic cat feeder. I can pore a month's worth of cat food into it, set the program to feed the cats, and don't worry about them again. You can set it to feed 1-4 times per day, 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups of food per feeding. I love it!

Here's our cat door in the window. You can buy one on amazon.com here for about $125. Brian built this one for me from a $20 cat door from Lowe's, a piece of scrap wood, and a little bit of paint. The bonus is that the dogs are using this too. Now all five of my animals can let themselves in and out whenever they want to.

My dogs really don't eat very much. I fill their food bowl every 2-3 days. I have to add water to the resevoir on the fountain every three days, and I have to feed my cats once a month. It's all so simple!

Now, if I could only teach them how to handle traffic jams at the door ....