Doc & Phoebe's Cat Co.Complete Indoor Hunting No Bowl Kit

Let me start off by saying this nobowl hunting system does work. I absolutely love the idea of this, it is a little overwhelming at first, as I have 3 cats and only one is a total glutton that harasses my life first thing in the morning by chewing my hair to wake me up to feed him and the other two just hop on the bandwagon once I'm up. He figured it out quickly, the other two can't be bothered, so naturally he takes on their mice and eats their food, and this is my issue I'm not sure how to resolve. I ended up returning it because the seller says each cat needs their own set of 5. What. That's a total of $120 that I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to just yet to feed my cats. LOVE the concept, not loving the cost...=( I disagree with the reviewers that say the food falls out too easy -- the point of this isn't to make it so hard for the cat to get to their food, the point is for them to hunt their food. When a cat hunts in real life the challenge isn't the eating part, it's the hunt. I also don't feel the food falls out too easy, I think it's just right. For my glutton cat, he's able to get the dry food out very quickly which has made training him very quick and easy, but for the other two, since it doesn't fall out the second they tap it, they're over it and walk away, and the glutton swoops in and finishes the job for them. This is the issue I haven't been able to resolve and adds to my hesitance of ordering two more sets. I was a little underwhelmed with the design when I opened the box (beautiful packaging btw). The body covering is removable and feels like a wet suit, the head is a firm, squishy feel, with blue felt ears. The trainer has holes on the top and sides for the cats to grasp the concept quicker, the mice to be hunted only have two top holes. When I hid a couple of mice, I was shockingly able to sleep an extra hour or so, bc the glutton is the only one who wakes me, and he was off hunting them at some point of the EARLY morning. This concept is stellar and I really do love the idea of it, but I returned it solely due to cost since I would need 3 sets. If I had one cat I'd suck up the $40. If this was priced cheaper, I would've gladly kept the one and ordered two more and tried my patience. For $40 I kind of expected a design that's slightly more... mouse like. Also, the "pouring spoon" is poorly designed-- annoying and messy, but not even relevant in my decision to return. Pro tip: pour over the dry food bag, or just use your hand, I found this easiest. As of now, I'm continuing my morning routine of being woken up by my hair being chewed at 5am, and doing a rain dance for a price decrease, or perhaps my patience will run out and I'll soon be a proud owner of 3 sets. Who knows. Happy hunting !

Unlike in the item pictures and main listing, you get 3 mice, 1 spoon, and a "training" mouse which is just the hard plastic inside. So there are 5 pieces but only 3 mice.Each mouse is a hard plastic oval with a cutout on the top, a slider to control how open the cutout is to make it easier/harder to get treats out or allow larger treats to fall out, and a foam/fabric shell in the shape of a mouse. The "tail" of the mouse is a drawstring that cinches the butt closed so you can open the fabric and take out the plastic inside to clean it.My cat likes these! I was putting part of his kibble each meal in the three mice so he would have to slow down and work for some of his meal which was going great. I would hide the mice around the house and he found them and batted them around to get the kibbles out. After some health issues he has less interest in food so we use them as enrichment now with treats.We never used the training mouse because my cat is very curious and smart, already knowing tricks and hunting for treats. If your cat needs some help learning the concept, the training mouse is useful since it's just plastic and will easily drop treats when batted around!The spoon is right handed so I don't use it to fill the mice and instead do it by hand. If you're right handed or ambidextrous this won't affect you. Having a spout on both sides of the spoon would make it usable for left handed people too.

My 7 yr. old cat just started showing an aversion to his bowl of 3 years for no apparent reason. He will eat from a smaller measuring cup bowl though, so probably not whisker fatigue. We decided to try this system as it looked like good kitty enrichment. He got it on day 1!No need for the trainer. He started playing with the empty mice right away and once I added his food with a little enticing shrimp treat thrown in for good measure, he figured it out.He definitely has spots he prefers and so we’re learning where to place them. Near walls seems to be best so he can use the wall to help flip it. Under the table and under the curtains he likes too. He seems to be eating his normal amount of food, just in greater intervals, which is probably good for him. He is also eating “stale” food - food that’s been sitting in his “bowl” for “too long” overnight. Normally he demands fresh kibble in the morning but he’s still munching on his mice this morning.If this keeps up, we will not go back to the bowl until he’s too old to use the mice!Minus one star because the scoop sends kibble everywhere while trying to pour it into the mice. We have really small kibble too. If there were a way to open up the mouse to put in the kibble vs. pouring it in through the holes, that would prevent the mess. Still worth it for the cat’s health and entertainment though!

A simple puzzle for cats, but also really effective at engaging them. I purchased one set for my cat and one for my friend's cat and they both really enjoy the enrichment. My girl is way too good at solving the treat-rat puzzle now, so I'm going to have to stop giving them to her until she forgets (she's an idiot, it's okay).It wasn't difficult to teach her what the purpose of the toy was, but if your pet isn't FOOD MOTIVATED it might take a little more effort. She has destroyed two of the three 'mice' that come in the set, completely denuding one and making the other two tatty as heck. She's also learned that if we say 'treat-rat' she's gonna get 1) to destroy the toy some more and 2) TREATSI recommend using small, hard treats and not wet-food or moist things. Not because the toy is hard to clean (it's easy) but because the way the cats tend to solve it is by knocking the rat upside-down and rolling it around until the treats drop out. You don't want that mess on your carpet, trust me. :B

Present for my daughter and her cat