Reviews – Page 2 – Pet Momma

Laser Cat Toy by PetSafe

My cats have been playing with the Laser Tail Toy from PetSafe for a few months now, and they love it! I’ve used many PetSafe products over the years; toys, leashes, water fountains, and I find them generally to be good quality and fair prices. This laser toy certainly fits in that category.

The toy is roughly 7″ long and 5.5″ wide. It’s small enough to easily carry around in one hand. The device is very sturdy and can handle the cats pushing it, leaping on it, and even knocking it down the stairs. It has also been fine when I’ve forgotten about it and accidentally stepped on it, whoops!

The unit takes three double A batteries, and honestly they seem to last forever. As you can see above, it has three wheels that move the unit around on the floor. I have used it on linoleum, floor tiles, short carpet, and wood floors, and it seems to work well on all of them. It is able to move more quickly and freely on non-carpeted surfaces, of course, but it does work just fine on short carpet.

So what exactly does this toy do? It projects a laser on the floor. It’s simple and pretty awesome. For whatever reason, cats seem to love chasing laser beams. While it can be very enjoyable for humans to tease a cat with a handheld laser, this toy entertains your cat when you can’t, or when you just want to watch.

See that white circle above? That’s the power switch. Push it on, or push it off. It’s that simple. When it’s powered on, the toy turns on the laser, which projects onto the floor in front of it, and it moves. The toy moves backwards, forwards, left, right, and circles. It moves, stops, and moves again. It knows when it has bumped into something, and it changes direction. It will also turn itself off after a short period of time, so you could turn it on when you need to go out, and leave it to entertain your cats while you escape.

I keep this toy in the kitchen, for those times when the cats get pesty and need my attention, but I need to get something done. I hit the button on the bottom, and the cats are immediately off the counters, out of my way, and interested in what the toy is doing. Sometimes they just sit and watch it, other times they aggressively chase it, bat at it, and sometimes even knock it around.

Bean enjoys watching the laser. I’m not sure he really knows what to make of it. Sometimes he acts as if he is scared of it, but other times he enjoys chasing it. Most of the time, it’s a combination of watching and chasing.

Even though Bean is just a baby at barely a year old, he is still super lazy. A few minutes of play time, and he is ready for another nap!

Summary: I would definitely recommend this product for anyone looking to entertain their younger, more playful cats. My older cat, Logan, isn’t very playful anymore, and she doesn’t have any interest in this toy, but both of my younger boys enjoy playing with it. I do enjoy toys such as feathers on a stick and things like that which allow me to interact with the cats more, but this is a really handy thing to have when the cats need to play and I need to get something done. It’s sturdy, well designed, and long-lasting. I think it would be really fun to add a “tail” or other attachment to dangle off the back, but that might just get tangled up in the wheels. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Review: Bird Street Bistro Parrot Food

Got a bird? If you do, you know they aren’t easy pets. They require a lot of attention, cleaning, play time, more cleaning, and feeding. I’ve owned birds off and on for as long as I can remember. I posted about my history with birds in the “Before Hector D. Byrd” post if you want to read more.

Every bird I’ve owned has taught me something. With Maverick, my amazon, I started to learn a lot about feeding parrots. I also came to the conclusion that I wasn’t happy with any commercially made parrot foods. I feed commercial parrot pellets, but mostly as a supplement. My birds have always had homemade food. It took Hector some time to get used to my food, but now she devours it. She anxiously waits by her bowl for her breakfast every morning. If breakfast doesn’t come fast enough, she whistles and bangs her bowl.

My feeding routine for Hector is that she always has a fresh bowl of pellets in her cage. I’m currently feeding her Zupreem Fruit Blend. Not only does she eat these pellets, and not just throw them, but she also likes to sort them. They pellets are different shapes and colors. Sometimes I’ll check her bowl and find there are only orange pellets left. Other times, she sorts out a different color. Food and entertainment, all in one bowl!

Just recently, I discovered Bird Street Bistro, and it seems to be the first food that can replace my homemade mix. I’m so excited! No more special shopping trip to get all the ingredients, and no more setting aside a couple of hours each month to mix up a batch.

Bird Street Bistro mixes are all natural, no added fillers or preservatives. They have about half a dozen different recipes to add variety to your birds diet. Prices are reasonable. When I first checked out their page, I was thinking their mixes were a bit pricey, but when I started to price out my own grocery list when I buy products to make my own recipe, I realized how reasonable their prices are.

I started with the Parrot Food Sample Pack. Knowing Hector isn’t a big fan of beans, I asked if I could swap out the Cajun Bean Feast flavor, and received their AppleBerry flavor instead. Different formulas need to cook for different amounts of time, but it seems that all can be done in about 20 minutes, and some take much less time.

Knowing that Hector LOVES cinnamon, CinnaSpice Delight was the first flavor I tried. Making this food could not have been any easier. I simply added water and some of the dry mix to a pot, brought it to a bowl, covered it, and let it simmer for 15 minutes. The whole house smelled so good while it was cooking! `The ingredients are wonderful, rice, millet, split peas, barley, couscous, currants, carrots, oats, barley, apples, etc. I love the different grains included in this mix.

After cooking, I let it cool to room temperature, then watched Hector devour it. Since Hector is already eating a similar, homemade version of this food, she had no trouble converting to it all all. I had some of my homemade food available, so I could mix the two foods if needed, but Hector was happy with the new food right away.

For birds that are converting from a different diet, they may need a little encouragement to eat a food like this. It took me MONTHS to get Hector to eat my homemade mash when I first started out with it. Patience is key with parrots. Don’t give up, be persistent, eventually they will give it a try. Don’t stress over wasted food. I always used to remind myself that the cost of vet bills for bad diet in the future would be WAY more than the cost of the food Hector was wasting. There are tips on the back of the bags to help get you started.

The next flavor I tried was the Southern Feast. My favorite part of this one is that it cooks in 3 minutes! Just add the mix to boiling water, stir for 30 seconds and remove from the heat and let sit. Hector also approves of this flavor. This one has couscous, wheat, millet, oats, carrots, peppers, quinoa, almonds parsley, cayenne pepper, basil, cumin, and kelp.

Mixing up one batch of Bird Street Bistro according to their directions gives me about a mason jar full of food, plus another meal. It works out well for me to make it, feed Hector, then store the mason jar of food in the fridge and I have fresh food for 4-5 days.

Instead of Hector having to eat the same batch of food for a month plus, now I can switch up flavors for her every time I make a batch, so she is getting a new flavor every few days. Bird Street Bistro comes in resealable bags, so I can make a batch, then I just put the rest of the dry mix into the freezer for storage. It’s so convenient! I also like that I have less stuff in my freezer since I don’t have a month’s worth of mason jars, I just have a bag of Bird Street Bistro, and the fresh mix in the fridge.

I will be trying the other flavors soon, and I expect that I will definitely be ordering more. With a product like this on the market, I see no reason to go through the time and hassle of making my own food.

The only negative I have about this product, is the veggie content. I feel that my homemade blends contain more veggies than Bird Street Bistro blends that I have tried so far, but it is hard to tell by looking. My homemade blends had bigger pieces of veggies for sure, but I’m wondering if Hector will actually eat more veggies with the new blend because she can’t pick them out. I’ve always supplemented Hector with fresh veggies on top of her homemade mix, so I will continue to do that while using Bird Street Bistro. I also need to check out their Viva La Veggies flavor and the Hearty Veggies. I have Viva La Veggies, but haven’t made it yet. I’ll also check out the Hearty Veggies next time I need to place an order. Based on the pictures on their website, it looks like both of these flavors have more veggies than the flavors I’ve made so far.

Another thought I had on the veggies was to add another product I use which is a chop from a company called Texas Natural Freeze Dried Products. They make a variety of freeze dried foods for parrots and humans. I like to keep some of their Freeze Dried Chop on hand for a quick breakfast for Hector if I forget to make or defrost her normal food. Their chop is a great product that contains a ton of veggies: kale, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, sweet peppers, yellow squash, red cabbage, apples, and strawberries. I can easily add a bit of this freeze dried mix to the Bird Street Bistro if I want to add some extra veggies to the mix.

I’m really excited about Bird Street Bistro foods. In the long run, it will save me time and money. I’m impressed with the high quality ingredients and the ease of use. I like the convenience of making up a batch that lasts a few days. I like the variety of grains in the product which not only help balance the birds diet, but also give it different shapes and textures to pick out of the food. Something I know Hector enjoys.

I know a lot of people think of birds and think they eat seeds. In the research I’ve done, I’ve grown to believe that seeds are not a healthy diet for captive birds. They are too high in fat and can cause liver disease and other problems later in life. Hector doesn’t eat seeds. She does get sunflower seeds as a very rare treat, but never as part of her regular diet. Mostly for treats she gets almonds(in the shell), cucumber slices, sometimes a whole grain, unsalted cracker with a little bit of almond butter, carrots, peppers, etc.

Review: Stella & Chewy’s Surf ‘n Turf Dinner Patties

Hector Supervising While I Write — Hector – She has nothing to do with today’s article other than she is hanging out with me while I’m writing it!

What do you do with your pets when you travel? For me, the dog goes to a friend’s house. The cats, parrot, and dragon stay home with daily visits from a pet sitter. I like to make things as simple and easy as possible for everyone that helps out with my pets.

For the dog, that means making feeding time as simple as possible. At home, Cali gets a spoonful of canned food mixed with some dry food. This works for the pet sitter, of course, but it’s a bit of a pain for her to have to keep canned food in the fridge, measure everything out, and mix it up. I started making mason jars with the food all set and she just had to put it in a bowl, but the jars had to be refrigerated because of the canned food, another hassle.

For my last two trips, I discovered Stella & Chewy’s Dinner Patties, and they are exactly what I needed. The patties are freeze-dried raw, and grain-free. At the advice of my vet, I don’t prefer a fully grain-free diet, but I feed a dry food that has grain along with these patties to balance it out. Since they are freeze-dried, they are shelf stable.

With the Stella & Chewy’s patties, I can make up mason jars, pre-measured for each meal. They don’t need to be refrigerated, and all my pet sitter has to do is add water, shake, and pour in a bowl. Super easy and convenient!

What do I like about this product? The convenience is definitely what brought me to this product, but I’m also really impressed with the quality. These dinner patties are offered in 13 different varieties. I chose the Surf ‘N Turf variety with Beef and Salmon. Cali has allergies, so I find that fish based foods help her with her itchiness. The ingredients in this food are impressive: the first ingredient is beef, and the second is whole ground salmon. Each bag contains 14 ounces which lasts me a LONG time with one 10 pound dog.

Recommended feeding is 3 1/2 patties per day for a dog Cali’s size, but I supplement with regular dry food. For this last trip, Cali was fed 1/2 of a patty, plus a handful of her regular Halo Salmon dry dog food per meal, two meals per day. Two weeks of travel meals and I still have almost half a bag of the Stella & Chewy’s left over. One bag is priced at about $29.99.

If you are interested in a convenient raw diet, or if you want to do what I do and supplement some raw foods, I definitely recommend this product.

Pros: Convenient, Easy to Use, Good Ingredients, Raw food, Versatile (can be used as is or rehydrated,) Liked by my picky eater, great variety of flavors

Cons: I don’t have any real complaints about this product. It is a bit pricey, but all high quality foods are. I don’t like that it is Grain-Free, but that is a Pro to others.

WePet Litter Mat

With three cats in the house, one of them a Maine Coon with long hair, there is always litter everywhere. I’ve got four litter boxes. One is a Breeze box which actually isn’t too messy, but the cats don’t love it. They use it to pee, but that’s it. It has a pelleted litter in the top with a slatted bottom, so the urine goes into the bottom tray where there is an easy-to-change pad. The pelleted litter is great because it doesn’t scatter as much as grainier litter, but after months of using it, my cats still don’t love it.

I’ve tried a bunch of different types of pelleted litter, paper ones, pine ones, it doesn’t seem to matter, the cats hate it. They have some not-so-subtle ways of showing me their displeasure with the pellets. I’ve decided to let them win. I’ll have to find another way to stop the spread of the litter from the regular cat boxes, and just let them have their standard clumping litter.

I’ve got the three cat boxes in washing machine trays. They are great because they are big enough to hold the entire litter box, and have some room for the cats to step in and out of the box from on the tray. They are easy to clean up as well. The problem is the cats love to dig, and when they dig the litter flies. Even with the litter in the washing machine trays. The trays are just hard plastic, so the litter still scatters. The rug outside of the trays ends up feeling like a sandbox if I don’t vacuum every day.

My next idea was to add litter mats to the trays. The ones I’m using now are by WePet. I had been using one of their mats upstairs, and now I bought two more for the downstairs cat boxes. So far they seem to be helping. There are a lot of features I like about these mats and I hope they continue to work out.

The WePet mat I bought was pretty inexpensive, about $11 on Amazon. The low price was definitely what tempted me to buy my first one, now I’ve purchased three! They are a good size, big enough to cover a decent sized area in front of the box for the cats to step in and out.

I also like the material they are made of. It’s a soft mesh that seems like it would be comfortable on the kitty paws while still managing to help collect the litter. I’ve found the one I have been using upstairs easy to clean. I just shake it out, and occasionally run the vacuum over it. I haven’t had to wash it, but I’m guessing it would wash fine in the tub and I could easily hang it to dry.

The mats seem to hold litter well, they are slip resistant, making it easy for the cats to jump in and out of their boxes. For some reason, the cats like scratching at these, and so far they haven’t done any damage to the mats, so I guess that is another bonus.

I’ll make sure to post an update when I’ve had a chance to use these mats longer to see how they hold up downstairs with the three litter boxes.

Cat Stuff

The weather has been crazy, sunny and spring-like one day, cold, windy, rainy the next. We’ve been taking advantage of any and all sunny days to open up the house and get some fresh air in. The kitties love to hang out near the screens, sniff the fresh air, and occasionally keep an eye on a chipmunk or two.

On the colder days, they all like to find a cozy spot to snuggle up.

I’m still experimenting with litter boxes, and now with cat litter as well. The Breeze Box is working out well for me as my extra/upstairs box. the litter doesn’t track, and it doesn’t smell. The two most important things to me. I still don’t think that box would work out for me if I only used Breeze boxes, but maybe it would. If I see them on sale again, I might buy another to try downstairs with my other boxes.

I keep three boxes downstairs, and all three were traditional tray boxes with clumping litter. As Bean is getting bigger, I was finding litter everywhere. Not only in the large trays I keep under the boxes, but spread into the carpet in the hall, up the stairs, just everywhere. If I didn’t vacuum every day, the hall was turning into a sandbox. My first experiment was to try a paper pellet litter. The litter I chose is: Purina Yesterday’s News Non Clumping Paper Cat Litter, Unscented Low Tracking Cat Litter.

The key to me was the “low tracking” part. It has been ages since I’ve used a non-clumping litter, but it was worth a try. I’m using the paper litter in just one of the three boxes. I didn’t want to overwhelm the cats. They started using it right away, but like the upstairs box, they are only using the new litter to urinate.

So far, I really like this litter. It is definitely not tracking. Once every couple of days I find a pellet or two on the carpet, but other than that these pellets mostly stay in the box. I bought a new litter scoop: and it is working out well. I’m finding the non-clumping litter to be much easier to deal with than I had imagined. Every day I run the scoop through it, pick up any chunks, and that’s it. About every ten days, I dump the entire box, wipe it out, and refill it, super easy. The new scoop is also working really well for my clumping litter. It has bigger holes, so I don’t have to scoop and shake, shake, shake. I just scoop, wait a second, and the clumps are ready to be dumped.

My only hesitation with this new litter is that the cats aren’t using it to poop. I’m trying to decide if I should switch another box to this paper litter, or maybe try another kind of litter in one of the other boxes, maybe a pine litter.

I definitely think that the pelleted litters are less tracking for us, and although I’m kind of shocked about it, I also think I want to move to a non-clumping litter. The way my boxes are set up, it is super easy to dump them every ten days or so, and it makes daily cleaning easier. I guess I’ll have to see how my litter costs are and if it is much more expensive to dump the whole box so often.

I definitely don’t love it when the pets beg, but when we eat in front of TV and Puck gets up on his hind legs like this, it is just too cute!

My other cat issue is that one of them has been throwing up hairballs pretty regularly. I think it’s Bean, but I’m not 100% sure. I’ve tried home remedies, like coconut oil, but haven’t had any luck. Last week, I tried a commercial product and it seems to be helping. Funny thing is that Bean is the only one who will eat it. I’m trying to brush him more, and using the hair ball remedy as well. Hopefully that will fix that problem.

Hector is quiet this morning, the Dragon is sunning herself. I should take advantage of the quiet house and get some work done. I’m putting together info on pet water fountains, and will have that posted soon. I seem to always be experimenting with new pet products to solve different problems. What are you experimenting with these days?

Litter boxes, cozy spaces, and Bean!

It has been way too long since my last post, sorry about that! Sometimes life gets in the way of the fun stuff! I hope you can bear with me on this post as there is lots of different stuff I want to cover.

First of all, Bean is just over 5 months old! He’s getting really big, but he is still really clumsy. I’ve dubbed him Captain Crash. This cat is not graceful, and not light on his feet! I’m guessing/hoping that once he finishes growing, he will figure out his body and get a bit more athletic.

A neighbor had a sheepskin she didn’t want anymore, so I claimed it, and Bean and the other cats are really happy about it. We’ve got two sheepskins now, so there is less fighting. Puck is currently curled up on one, while Bean enjoys the other.

We also bought another treat for the cats. Puck used to love to sleep on top of the lizard tank where it was warm from the lights. He was smart enough to sleep on the bar light, so his weight wasn’t on the screen top. Bean isn’t that intelligent. He insisted on sleeping on the screen, and it was just a matter of time before the screen would have been destroyed. My boys rigged up a top that gives the lights air space so they don’t over heat, but it is a bit crinkly and wiggly so the cats don’t like to climb on it. Sadly for Puck, he lost his warm spot to sleep, but I had to keep the Dragon safe.

My son was sad that Puck lost his warm spot, so he found a solution, a heating pad for pets! We bought the K&H PET PRODUCTS Thermo-Kitty Mat Heated Pet Bed, and it is pretty great! The pad stays plugged in all the time, but it has a pressure sensor, so it heats up when there is weight on it. The cover is removable, so it is super easy to wash.

Although it was purchased with the cats in mind, Cali definitely enjoys it as well! I wish it was a bit wider, but overall it is working out really well.

I added it to the open dog crate that all the pets love to sleep in. The sheepskin that was in the dog crate moved onto the top, so the cats have a new cozy spot that even allows them to look out the window.

Another new addition to the house is a giant cat tree. All the cats seem to be enjoying it, but Bean really loves it! Bean gets into crazy kitty mode every now and then and he tears around the house at top speed. This usually ends with him jumping onto a table, couch, or the cat tree. He loves landing on the cat tree and bouncing his way all the way up to the top-most perch.

Sorry for the not-so-great picture. It’s hard to get a good photo of a dark brown cat tree in a dark red room! But at least you get the idea, that this thing is big!

In other Bean-news, I started looking into getting him neutered. I called my regular vet and they told me the surgery would be about $400! I mentioned to a friend that I thought it was a bit expensive, and she suggested I look into a spay/neuter clinic at the local SPCA. She also sent me a link to an SPCA group that got a grant and is offering FREE spay and neuters. My local SPCA does reduced cost spay and neuters based on income, so I didn’t qualify for their program. The other group that got the grant doesn’t have any financial restrictions, the pet just has to be within certain age, weight, etc.

I sent in an application for Bean to be neutered, and I waited about a week. He was accepted! Good news! Since I want him to have a microchip, that will cost me $25, but the neuter surgery is totally free! Then I found out the clinic is about an hour and a half away. I think my daughter and I are going to make a day of it. We will drop Bean off in the morning, and do some exploring, have lunch, whatever, and pick him up for the ride home that afternoon. I get bonus time with my daughter, AND a free neuter, sounds like a win-win!

If you are still reading, thank you! just a couple of updates left for today, first follow up on the Breeze litter box has been in our house for about a month now. I’m actually really liking it. I don’t have a desire to change all four of our boxes to the Breeze system, but this one is working out well. As a reminder, I have three regular litter boxes under the stairs on the first floor of our house. I added an upstairs litter box when Bean was tiny and we were keeping him confined. Since Logan sometimes gets in weird moods and hides upstairs, she was also using the “extra” litter box, so I didn’t want to take it away when Bean got run of the house.

The problem with the extra litter box I started out with was the clumping litter scattering all over the place. The box is in our laundry room, and I hated stepping in litter every time I walked in there. The Breeze box uses pellet litter and pads to trap the urine. I was hoping the big pellets wouldn’t get all over the place like the other litter did.

It’s working! The pellets mostly stay in the box, and the one or two that come out are easily cleaned up from the mat I have in front of the box. I’m amazed that there isn’t any odor from the box. The pads do an amazing job of trapping the urine and the smell. About once a week I change out the pad which is in a slide out drawer in the bottom of the box. It takes less than 30 seconds to change out the pad, and even when I lift the pad to remove it, there isn’t any mess. The pad contains it all. Another cool feature is that the drawer for the pads can be put in either way, so if the urine is mostly on one end of the pad, I can flip the drawer to put the clean end of the pad where the cats are using it most.

The pellets are supposed to be changed out about once a month, but at this point I don’t see a need to change them yet. They seem clean, and there isn’t any odor. I was worried about the cost of the pads and pellets, but Amazon sells generic versions of the pads that are very reasonably priced.

The one problem I’m having with the box is that my cats simply refuse to poop in it! I tried putting poop from another box in there to give them the idea, they just buried it. When there was a regular litter box in the same spot, the cats definitely pooped in that one, so it has to be something about this Breeze box. Honestly, I’m not worried about it. The cats go to the other three boxes to poop and only use this one to pee. It keeps the smell out of our upstairs area which is great. If I needed to use this as my only box, I’d definitely have a problem, but as a spare box, this thing is working out much better than I could have expected.

Hopefully I’ll have another post sooner, rather than later, but it’s time for me to see what Hector is chirping, chattering, whistling, and burping about before I get on with my work day.

PetSafe Drinking Fountains

Do you use a Pet Fountain for your dog or cat? I started using one a few years ago, and I won’t ever go back to a regular water bowl, especially for my cats.

Years ago, I lost a cat to kidney disease. My vet told me it was very common because most cats don’t drink enough water. I switched to a diet of canned and dry food for my cats so they would get that little bit of extra moisture from the canned food, and I switched to a fountain.

I have two PetSafe fountains that I switch between. One is the Drinkwell Seascape Fountain, shown above with Bean, and the other is the Drinkwell, 2 gallon model.

Both fountains work great. I actually use them both and switch off between them. They both work in essentially the same way, they have a filter which circulates the water from the bowl, and then spits it out through the fountain. The 2 gallon model has a spout for the water to come out of, and the Seascape model uses a large ceramic globe or ball that the water comes out of the top and pours down over the sides. I like to switch between the two fountains to keep the cats interest up. They seem to really like to lick the water off the ceramic globe of the Seascape, but they also enjoying playing with the water from the spout on the two gallon model.

Maintenance is easy. Each fountain contains a foam filter and a carbon filter. It takes me maybe ten minutes total for a thorough cleaning. The process is very similar for both. The foam filter fits around the pump and collects larger debris such as cat hair, and the carbon filter freshens the water. I clean my fountain about once every ten days, and usually change the carbon filter every time. There are times I’ve rinsed the filter and it has looked OK, so I’ve used it for a second cycle. The foam filter is very easy to rinse and reuse. I probably only change my foam filter once every three months. Both types of filters are easily and inexpensively available on Amazon. Here’s the insides of the Seascape fountain:

Seascape Fountain – foam filter and pump

Carbon filter assembled and attached to foam filter and pump

The Two Gallon fountain is similar inside:

Housing goes over the pump and filters – the lever in the middle adjusts water flow

The Seascape is slightly easier to clean, simply because of the material it is made from. We have lots of minerals in our water and they build up quickly on surfaces. I find it easier to clean the ceramic bowl of the Seascape than the plastic of the other fountain. As you can see in the picture above, I definitely get some mineral residue.

During the week, I simply add fresh water to the bowl as the level depletes. The nice thing about the plastic fountain is the bigger capacity. The Seascape fountain holds about 70 ounces, while the other, holds about 2 gallons. I’ve got three cats and a small dog, so the capacity of the Seascape works for me. I don’t mind refilling it daily. When I had my yellow lab, it was definitely helpful to have the larger fountain, and even then, I put out a large water bowl along with the fountain in summer because he would go through a lot of water. Honestly, I found my Lab preferred to just drink out of a bowl most of the time. The cats always seem to prefer the moving water from the fountain.

Aesthetically, I like the look of the Seascape better. The ceramic feels more finished. I also prefer the spherical design of the Seascape better than the spout design of the two gallon model.

Another small detail I like better about the Seascape model is that it is easier to pick up. The two gallon model has straight sides that go right to the floor, so it is harder to get a finger under it to lift it, and the sides are straight. The Seascape is a bit curved at the top of the bowl, so it is easy to pick up. It also feels sturdier than the plastic fountain when I have to move it with water in it.

Overall, I think they are both great fountains. If I had to chose only one, I would chose the Seascape because the capacity is enough for me, and I like the look of it, but if you need the bigger capacity, the Two gallon works just great.

Do you use a fountain for your pets? What features do you like? You can check out these two fountains at www.petsafe.com or look for them on Amazon.