This item was purchased in order to give our spine issue Siberian Husky, Sam, a bit of relief while eating. He's been having issues eating from his bowl due to back problems, so we felt that giving him an elevated bowl would give him relief and allow him to eat without pain or discomfort.
I purchased the 11 inch version, as it was the closest to a comfortable height for him.
It's pretty flimsy, as far as design goes. Very thin plastic, but it seemed as though it wouldn't tip over during licking of food out of the bowl. Sam is a rather voracious eating and tends to "walk" the bowl trying to eat.
It comes with two stainless steel bowls that are a pretty good size, but not very heavy, so I would say they are average type of bowls if not low end. There is a small cut out where you can put your thumb to lift the bowl out without spilling the contents, such as water.
The moment I placed it in Sam's eating spot and filled one of the bowls with water, the other dogs had to give it a try and actually started migrating to that water bowl over their other water bowls.
For a 50lb husky, the height was a little higher than I would have liked, although Sam didn't appear to have any trouble eating out of it. The problem comes when the dog is eating, the bowls actually clank around and spin inside their compartments. At some points, I thought the bowl would actually fall out of the holder, and I actually held the bowl to keep it from flying out and spinning.
Needless to say, I wasn't too thrilled with the whole thing, and Sam wasn't either.
For years we have used a homemade elevated stand. It was actually a wooden step that someone made for us, but we found that if we put a non-slip shelf liner on it (easy to replace when dirty), it made for a very good elevated water bowl holder... all of the dogs prefer to drink out of this bowl rather than the other one that's on the floor.
I decided that since the other dogs seemed to like drinking out of the Top Paw, I moved the Top Paw Elevated Dog Feeder over to replace their two water bowls, and moved the homemade elevated stand over to Sam's food spot.
This has actually worked out very well as the non-slip shelf liner keeps Sam from "walking" his bowl all over the place while he eats, all of the dogs (including Sam) like the new water bowls, so that's a win-win.
Overview: As a feeder, it totally sucks if your dog eats like a dog. The bowls are light and spin and bounce (and will probably careen out of the holder) while they're eating. As a water bowl stand it works out pretty well.
Because it doesn't actually work as a food/water station, I'm only giving this item 1 paw.
** Update: Here's another great idea to make your own, cheap elevated bowl. Simply get a bucket, remove the handle, cut a hole in the bottom and plop your dog bowl in the hole. Thanks to Victoria Ball for the great idea!
