a pet food bowl with a lid that opens when the appropriate cat/dog’s paw is presented.
when you have a sickly animal they like to eat at their own pace but the other healthy inmates of the place are never averse to scoffing the lot leaving the invalid with nothing.
so this bowl would only open when it recognises the appropriate pawprint.
I imagine you could program all your pets’ pawprints into the bowl’s memory.
keep the food cool/warm and fresh as well.-- po, Aug 18 2004 Biometrics for pets eh?-- skinflaps, Aug 18 2004 Can we infer from this that you are nursing a sick animal? I hope s/he feels better soon.
What would stop the healthy inmates from stealing once the invalid had gotten the lid open? Would it have a cover so that the sick animals head would be surrounded? Would it be sort of like the covered litter boxes, only smaller and filled with food? The door at the front would only open when the animals paw was presented and its head pushed against the door?-- Ichthus, Aug 18 2004 //s/he feels better soon.// unfortunately that was not to be. no fault lies with my other pets though. thanks Ich.-- po, Aug 18 2004 Not just for when they're poorly [po]. My old dog has anti-arthritis medicine every day added to his food. If we didn't tie our greedy young cocker-spaniel to the door-knob using her lead, she would scoff his food and deprive him of his medicine before you could blink, so we could benefit from this idea. My reservation comes from watching my dogs play with toys which have food hidden in them. Their persistence, determination and agression when confronted with something as simple as a sock with a saussage hidden in the end is a sight to behold. If they saw a pet food bowl with pet food in it, the small matter of a paw-specific lid would be unlikely to deter them from biting it repeatedly. The 'bowl' would have to be pretty strong to withstand that assault!
That said, perhaps you could use a variant of the magnetic collar thingy that works those magic cat flaps?-- dobtabulous, Aug 18 2004 missing out on pizza is just plain tragic - you poor fing.-- po, Aug 18 2004 Eric has been quite a character here. I am so sorry to have to let him go...
RIP Eric - 1987 - 2004
miss you already!
distraught actually...
sorry-- po, Aug 18 2004 this would be good for healthy pets too. we've got one fat cat and one skinny cat and can't seem to even them out because the big one eats the little ones food before the poor bastard knows what happened. (+)-- xclamp, Aug 18 2004 Who's Eric?-- Machiavelli, Aug 18 2004 [po]'s friend and only dog.-- Worldgineer, Aug 18 2004 Sorry to hear that, po. (thanks for the info, [world])-- Machiavelli, Aug 18 2004 Awwe, sorry to hear that po.
What [skinflaps] said. I like it for the biometrics part. +-- sartep, Aug 19 2004 what [xclamp] said, one fat cat, one middling, actually the middling cat is starting to steal the fat one's diet food. I can't control what they do at night.
all my sympathy, po-- dentworth, Aug 19 2004 [po] so sorry to hear about Eric - thoughts are with you. [hazel] and [neilp] send their love.-- jonthegeologist, Aug 19 2004 {}-- egbert, Aug 19 2004 random, halfbakery