2020-2023

My cat, Saru, has a problem. She can’t pick up wet food from a ‘normal’ bowl.

Saru is a flat-faced cat who I adopted in 2019 right before the Pandemic. She was no longer wanted by her previous owner when I happened to be looking to adopt a cat, exactly like how you’d expect the “Cat Distribution System” to work. I took her in without much hesitation, blissfully not knowing what I got myself into.

Over the years, I’ve learned to wipe, clean, brush, and monitor her breath on a daily basis. But not being able to pick up wet food imposes a whole different level of stress. Saru’s flat facial structure means that, unlike regular cats with protruding jaws who can reach food with their mouths, she has to dive her entire face into food to eat. It’s not pleasant; the food annoys her whiskers and gets in the way of her breath and sight.

The only way to help her is to gather wet food into a small hill every few minutes. The hill shape allows her to bite into the tip of the pile without smudging her face. The hill flattens as she eats, and we repeat the process.

I wanted to make her life—and honestly, my life—easier. Imagine a world where Saru eats a whole meal without my intervention!

Hence, the search started.

Observation

1. Tilt. Many bowls incorporate some kind of element of slop, which allegedly helps alleviate pressure on the neck while eating.

2. Wide Opening. The specialised bowls tend to have a wide opening to prevent cats’ sensitive whiskers from touching the rim of the bowl.

3. Elevation. Raising the bowl may make it easier

4. Hygiene and food safety. For example, porcelain and stainless steel are better at resisting bacteria buildup compared to plastic.

Testing

Photo by Anastasiia Rozumna on Unsplash

Instead of biting into food, Saru can only ‘dab’

To better understand the problem, I started by observing more closely how Saru eats. This is especially important because she only has problems with eating wet food. What makes dry food kibble easy to eat—and specifically, easy for Saru to eat?

1. Hovers her face as close to the food surface as possible

2. Intensive melling (and inevitably, sneezing) session

3. she dabs on the food with her tongue

4. Retract her tongue, swirling up the crumbs

5. Rapidly repeats the process.

It is probably more accurate to say that she ‘drinks’ wet food than eats. Very occasionally, when a chunk of food is presented at a perfect angle and amount, like on the tip of the hill I make, she will happily ‘bite’ into it. In contrast, dry food kibbles have gaps between each pellet which allows Saru to bite into and work around.

If I cannot change the texture of her wet food (she is on a prescription diet, and my choices are limited), then the bowl I’m looking for should re-create the conditions that allow food to form at a ‘bite-able’ shape.

Before rushing to try out any product, I compared pet bowls on the market that are specifically designed for flat-faced cats (another keyword is Persian cat). These products share a few features.

In addition, most designs also take into consideration the safety of the material, easiness of cleaning, height of the rim wall, weight, non-slip property, and, obviously, aesthetics.

I found these considerations to be a good starting point to think about how the structure of the bowl affects cats’ eating habits. Yet, while many of these features seemed to be relevant, they do not address the specificities of different foods. In particular, dry food and wet food work very differently with Saru. Dry food remains its form, and wet food have different textures and it can slide, separate, and go bad much quicker.