Problem: Where To Put The Pet's Bowls? The Fall 2009 Kitchen Cure

For those with four-legged furry friends running around their home, there seems to be a unanimous problem — where do you put the pet bowls?! It seems like the answer should be easy: the floor, duh. But in reality, finding a bowl that looks attractive enough to sit out, plus learning not to kick it over during your daily routine, is a challenge.

Before you can tackle the placement of your pet's food and water dishes, you must first decide what's best for them. Cats are pretty simple since most are only at max a foot in height. Dogs on the other hand, well they're a different story. Food needs to be close to your dog's snout without excessive bending, which can cause problems with digestion and then some. You can read up more about what types of bowls are available and why over here.

On Style: There is one thing we can tell you for sure about your pet bowls: they'll be around for awhile. Even though many of the more modern versions are higher on the price scale, in the grand scheme of your pet's life, that balances out, so if there's one you truly love, save up and go for it!

Placement: We've all been there (usually when we're carrying something hot to the table), you know the dog bowl is there, but instead, splooosh, you kick it clear across the room. Awesome. It can be so very frustrating. In small spaces, the biggest impact could be made by feeding at regimented times and picking the food bowl back up when not in use. The water however, would need to stay down and it can be the trickiest of all!

If you don't have a spot to keep it tucked back out of the way, don't worry about it being an eyesore; it's an acceptable thing to have as a pet owner (that gross chew toy on the other hand, might need to go), so don't worry about it. To make it feel like it's part of the space more, instead of two bowls at the end of an island or against a wall, try hanging teatowels or artwork above the area to make it feel more inclusive.

Here are a few of our favorite posts from Apartment Therapy about different dog bowls and a few of their solutions (be it stylish or placement):

Pictured Left To Right & Top To Bottom
• Look! A Place for Pet Bowls: In this home, the bottom shelf has been reserved for the bowls of their pets. It is guaranteed to keep them out from under foot, but we suggest placing them on an absorbent mat for messy eaters.
• House Tour: Vicki & Richard's Eichler House of Robots: In this home the dog bowl sits to the side of the kitchen next to a credenza. It's inside a doorway in an area that won't be disturbed very often.
• Midwest #7 - Zohreh's Anti-Depressant Color: In this vibrant home, there's a special spot, just for the animals, complete with pictures hung at pet height. Although it might seem silly, it helps make the feeding area feel more like a feeding area instead of a pile of stuff to trip over.
• People Bowls as Pet Bowls: There's nothing wrong with using regular dishware instead of specialty pet products. They don't even have to match and might be easier to coordinate with your existing dishware.
• Look!: Vintage Wine Boxes as Dog Bowls: Although many pet bowls are held up by thin wire supports to not look so bulky in your spaces, this one goes in the opposite direction. We like that it feels more like a piece of furniture in your room, instead of some thing... over there... down on the floor.
• Top Ten: Pet Bowls: Although there are other alternatives out there, here's 10 decent pet bowls that might work for your pet.
• Enamel Dog Bowl: There's something to be said for a bowl that not only stays clean, but looks clean also, this enamel bowl pulls double duty and is not only sturdy but a snap to clean when messy.
• Trendy Pet: Raised Dog Bowls: In this post there's a great graphic to demonstrate how high up your dog bowls should be.

Where do you keep your pet bowls? Do you have a favorite or think you've found the best place to keep it? Let us know in the comments below!

Comments (14)

my cat likes to pull the food out of her bowl when she eats for some reason, leaving little brown bits all over the place.

I solved this by getting a great old vintage platter at the thrift store. it looks great and catches all of her crumbs!

Our kitten has a degenerative neurological condition and she has a hard time eating. She gets food and water EVERYWHERE. It's an impressive mess for such a tiny thing. We've completely given up with the cute bowls or logical placement and just make sure she gets some food in her.

elbow: if your cat is over a year and still pulls the food out of the bowl, you may want to get a bigger bowl - she probably doesn't like her whiskers touching the sides.

Our cats have their food on a table and their water is on a different table - they have decreed it, but we're not your usual cat owners.

One thing cat owners should take into consideration is that plastic bowls can cause acne. If you clean and disinfect the bowl every day this should not be a problem, but if you do not, and/or your cat starts getting pimples around their face and neck, you should consider switching to glass, metal or ceramic dishes.

For my cats I always just kept their food dishes in corner of the kitchen floor, and they always looked messy and out of place. Then I bought a small floor mat and put this in a corner with their food and water dishes on it. It looks like much more of a purposeful place now, and keeps them from sliding their dishes around so much as well.

My parents, however, have a small dropped counter space, and this is where they keep their cat's dishes. It works well for them, their cat likes jumping up for the food, and it keeps the dog out of it.

My cat drags his water bowl all over the kitchen. I've started keeping the food & water bowl on a little tray - and now he drags the whole tray around the kitchen. He's always done this.
He seems to enjoy this though - so I don't have the heart to figure a way to stop it. So every day or so - I scoot the bowls back into their spot. (between two pieces of furniture).

what's trickier is those pet water fountains. I have no choice but to plug 'em in in a spot near an outlet. my cat is the only one who drinks from the fountain...

my dogs bowls are right behind our island where we don't normally walk through or use that side of the island.

My dog bowls are under a side table we have in the kitchen. Due to my clumsiness though I often kick over the water bowl. I'm not too fussed about whether bowls suit the decor, or look gorgeous. My Corgi developed a habit of dragging his bowls across the floor so when we found one he was incapable of moving we bought it, with no consideration of how it looks.

I can't believe I never thought of putting mats under the bowls! What type of mat would be best for metal bowls on tile floors?

I have two cats that pull food out of their bowls. I'll switch to wider bowls, thanks for that advice.

Our dog mostly eats outside unless the weather is really bad which saves on mess and storing her bowl inside. She has a couple of water bowls around the house which are just put in places people don't really walk. We lift her food bowl up on an extremely glamourous upside-down beige bucket with the bottom cut out into which her blue plastic bowl sits snugly.

This has me thinking, maybe we should be looking for more elegant solutions...but then again, she's only really interested in what's inside the bowl anyway! :-)

Meggo: my parents' cat, who is very offended by the sight of an empty catfood dish when he's hungry, lets us know by batting the dish all over the kitchen. He does this with his (full) water bowl too.

I'm trying to figure out a good place for a cat water fountain, too. My cat is a reasonably neat eater, but for some reason, he doesn't like to drink from his water dish (which I scrub regularly and re-fill daily, thanks!). Instead he prefers to drink only from the bathroom tap. I'm tired of having my primary function be to turn the faucet on whenever he's thirsty, and of being woken up by a thirsty cat knocking things onto my head to let me know!

My pup's bowls are on a cooler under the counter ledge in my living room. The cooler is less than snazzy - I suppose I could cover it with a tablecloth or something for aesthetics - but gets the job done. I can keep food in the cooler so that I just have to pop it open to feed him. And, if anyone is the same age range as I am, I loved the book Strider as a kid, and they taught us that big dogs shouldn't have to bend down for their food, it will mess with their back. So due to Strider, I will keep it up high for him. Now I just have to work on teaching him to read.

We use a piece of black shelf liner (not the sticky-backed kind, but the rubbery kind) cut into a neat rectangle as a mat. It's easy to wash when needed, keeps water drips from staining or damaging the hardwood floor, and keeps the kitty bowls from sliding around (but they still manage to paw them out of place when chasing an errant bit of food). The bowls are reasonably large and shallow square plate-bowl hybrid things, in ceramic, from Target, and intended for human use.

Hmjames: despite the fact that the bowls are very shallow (no possibility of whisker infringement), one of our fully-grown cats dearly loves to pull handfuls of dry food out and chase the bits around the floors. The other one dutifully cleans up after him.

ABreadADay.com

I used a cute placemat under my kitten's food for about a month until she decided to signal her distaste for certain foods by "digging" the mat, sending water and food everywhere. I've abandoned that, switched to less tippy bowls, and now I'm on the hunt for heavier bowls that she cant move around as much (the rubber rim on stainless bowls really doesn't stop her from moving them all over).