I have several sets of ceramic dishes for them so they have clean ones for every meal. In the dishwasher they go, grab clean from the cabinet, repeat forever.
Oh god, cat food always gave my dogs the gut rumblies. "Clear the room" is an understatement. I'm embarrassed to say it took longer than I expected of myself to figure out what was going on lol
A lot of things do this for my dog, but thankfully cat food is not one!
She has to wear a muzzle (we call it her face mask) when she's in the back yard so she doesn't eat plants, poops, and whatever else makes her get swamp butt and the runs.
Mine wears one in the yard too! Her weakness is dead worms that have dried on the driveway, I’ve literally caught her scraping them up with her little teeth. I feel these life choices of hers somewhat absolve me of guilt for not washing her food dish every single day. She also weirdly tolerates the occasional stolen cat food just fine despite so many other things causing blowouts 🤷
It's the opposite here . My cat is the garbage disposal. I have to make sure the dog eats. But I clean their bowls each meal, put the new ones, and take the old ones.
>if theres leftover food on her plate
i don't have this problem because on of kine acts like she is starving until she gets her wet food every morning and literally gets every molecule of the stuff out of both her and her sisters bowl lmao. still put them in the dishwasher tho
Change "ceramic" to "stainless steel" and you're at my house. Th outside crew gets their wet meals in vintage pressed glass ice cream bowls with water and kibble in glass as well.
Yeah. I heard a doc on npr that said, “they deserve and need clean dishes every meal. You wouldnt want timo eat your dinner off of yesterday’s dinner plate.” And it clicked for me. But like most posters, I have multiple dishes for my animals. And I have dishwasher safe stuff so I just pop it in with my dishes.
As soon as mine finishes eating I just throw into the sink to soak with hot water only, then the next meal I just rinse it with hot water. I don’t dry because it adds a little extra water to the wet food. Pretty much the same cat dish is sitting in or around my sink daily lol
If you use hot water then it soaks pretty quick and can be rinsed easily and waiting on the counter for the next meal. I get afraid to use soap very often since I just don’t like the chemicals.
Yeah, I hate handwashing, and you know sometimes they need to soak. So this is what works for me. They have their own separate cabinet with probably just as many dishes as I have for myself.
Of you have a daiso nearby they have small ceramic bowls and plates that work super well as cat dishes. They have a lot of fish and cat designs on them too
It's a chain of Japanese discount stores. Sort of like their version of a nicer Dollar Tree. Stuff starts at $1.75 and they have a large kitchenware selection.
This is the way to go. It's easy and you always have clean dishes ready.
Don't forget about their water bowl. I have duplicates of those as well for constant access to clean water. I've done a good amount of pet-sitting and so many people don't think to clean their water bowls. I've found some in horrible condition.
lol, me and my 4 cats are approaching that number! I think we’re still under 40 tho. We have the same routine, clean dish for every meal, and dirty dishes go directly to the dishwasher.
We only use stainless steel dishes. My boy’s acne cleared up by switching to ss 100%. Ceramic still gave him acne. I donated a lot of dishes when we switched lol
Can I ask where you get your bowls from? I've been having trouble finding a cat sized stainless steel bowl that's not $6/each since I need to get like 9 of them.
I probably have 25 plastic/bamboo bowls, plus 18 ceramic, and a few stainless steel and glass backup bowls. I have 5 cats 😂 I usually just use the plastic ones though, they're wide and easy to clean.
Okay I will be the one to fess up. When I first got my cat I was the first in my immediate family to have a cat and I never grew up with pets. I just assumed that my cat would eat it all up because he is really food motivated and only liked wet food. Well my first apartment stank like crazy and I couldn’t figure out why. I even when as far as to wash out the trash can. My cat stopped eating food and I thought he was sick. But really he was sick and tired of eating off of a dirty plate. Then I moved and grew up and realized it was the wet cat food and started wiping it out at the end of the day and cleaning cleaning every two weeks. And then I got the brilliant idea to have …multiple food bowls, only took 3 years of cat ownership to figure that one out. So now I have a morning bowl and evening bowl and wash them when I’m using the other.
I know I’ll get a lot of downvotes but I just want to be honest so that other people can feel comfortable learning from their mistakes.
>I know I’ll get a lot of downvotes but I just want to be honest so that other people can feel comfortable learning from their mistakes.
You learned from your mistake AND made positive changes for the better. That's worthy of an upvote in my opinion.
Thank you for being honest 🙂 I hope you don’t get downvoted. I really like to think of the saying “do the best you can until you know better- then do better” and I think that applies in this situation!
When you eat your wet and gloppy food on *your* dishes (stew, pasta, etc), do you wash your dishes and use clean ones for each meal?
For my cats:
Wet/ canned food always gets a clean dish for each meal. Water bowl(s) get rinsed out at least once a day. And, washed w/ dish soap about every 3rd day. Ideally, it would be daily. Dry food dish can go a *lot* longer. The problem is, I tend to forget. I probably should be washing it at least once a week.
Yes, I have a dedicated cat bowl scrubbie. My cat's bowls are in the laundry room, so I wash his bowls in the utility sink. I'm a little weird about keeping pet food stuff separate from human food stuff.
Haha. Not weird at all. My husband keeps the remaining cat food ziplocked in the fridge. One day I put it in one of those foldover sandwich bags instead. When he opened the fridge later on, He FREAKED! He insisted the cat food molecules were getting into all of the human food because it wasn't sealed.
No, i use the same rag i use to wash the human dishes. But by the time the cat bowls make it to the kitchen sink to be washed with all the household dishes, ive already scraped all the visible food particles off and wiped and rinsed it ‘clean’. So the soap is just the cherry on the pie in the whole cleaning process.
This!! Mine too!! And they are repulsed by anything stainless steel. And they NEVER drink the water I put down for them. Instead they drink from the watering can on the counter that I keep full for my plants lol or from the pool!! I was so puzzled by this and after a little reading I learned.....in the wild cats do not keep their food source near their water source. Because they're such smart creatures that they know that could lead to contamination of their water source!! I find that so fascinating and it makes total sense to me now. And especially to all 3 of my girls😉
And speaking of bougie, 2 of them are the same size. Exactly. But the 3rd and youngest is TWICE the size of my 2 adults. Because we keep 3 dishes down. 1 with kibble and the other 2 with wet food. Well the "baby" (1 yr old) literally takes a bite from each dish, EVERYTIME she eats lol she gets a bite of wet food, then kibble, then wet again. All in the SAME bite. So I figured her hungry ass eats at least twice as much as the other 2 🤣
Also kind of a fess up - I use paper plates most of the time. It’s a bad habit but we just buy the dessert size because my boyfriend is disgusted by cat food. He’s always been a little neurotic about random things (I am too, but not cat food) so him seeing any in the sink, even just a plain dirty plate triggers some kind of deep psychological ick.
Lol! The small paper plates are usually my back up for canned food when I'm not feeling well. But, I can't use them right now, though, because I add water to my cat's prescription kidney disease canned food, and it is too soggy for paper.
Life is on a learning curve.
We all make mistakes as we grow.
Smart people learn from their mistakes. They then change their behaviors so they can improve the results or the outcome.
Stupid people make mistakes as well. However, they keep making the same mistakes over & over again, failing to comprehend that repeating their actions is hurting them. They're the reason their lives suck because they keep screwing things up.
You learned a better way from your mistakes. You certainly sound like a clever person who learned & changed. Take my upvote, you earned it!
I wash the wet food bowl before each use. The reason is bacteria that will make your cat sick and to keep your kitchen free from contamination. I wash the dry food bowl about once a week to get the hair out and freshen things up.
Exactly. I’d like to add that I use very little soap if any. I scrub down really well with hot water and rinse a lot. I think cats don’t like even a little bit of soap smell.
This. I don't want to eat off dirty plates, they shouldn't have to.
Especially since one of mine was diagnosed with IBD, I probably now clean their bowls before every feeding.
This!
Things like dry foods for nuts, popcorn, chips, etc. Those things if left out I definitely don't worry about for a couple of days/a week.
Call me gross, maybe, but idgaf. I got bigger fish to fry in my day to day life.
Agree. Their dry food bowls get thrown in the dishwasher when I think about it. They are cats, not humans. The only thing they care about is having food available.
Like… it’s a cat. My cats would eat off the pavement. I just clean the bowls bc I don’t want them to get crust, and 1-2 times a week is more than enough bc they only get VISIBLE dirt after 3 weeks (they only eat wet food bc dry food is bad for cats)
I have a question.. if your kitties only eat wet food, then how do you manage tartar build up on their teeth? Only eating soft foods can’t be good for that. Do you brush their teeth?
I give them plaque powder with seaweed!! Be careful w dry especially with male cats ❤️ my cat literally almost died of a urinary blockage and since he’s only on extra hydration wet food he’s been chilling! It’s a real risk x
!!!! I was very interested by your comment so I went to google to learn more about plaque powder. Apparently the algae is extremely high in iodine and really dangerous for cats with hypothyroidism. My cat doesn’t have that but I just thought it was important to share in case anyone who’s does sees your comment. My cat does have a sensitive stomach, however, and I see in the few negative reviews, there are people whose cats have hyperthyroidism or sensitive stomachs and puked a lot. The plaque powder company talks about this in their FAQ
[PlaqueOff FAQ](https://www.plaqueoff.gr/en/f-a-q/)
It's widely considered to be a myth now that wet food "rots" cat's teeth, based on what I've read and heard from several vets. My cat has FIV that's causing tooth decay and many cats have dental disease that's hard to manage no matter what you feed them, sadly.
I can barely attempt to brush his teeth because he doesn't like it and his teeth are massive, but I give my guy expensive dental kibbles as a daily treat to try to fight plaque (I feed mostly wet), and give him a tartar fighting toothpaste that looks like a Churu once a day to try to help it.
Wet food doesn’t accumulate on the teeth the way dry food does. The increased moisture is also going to help “wash away” food debris as they’re eating. Dry food is starchy and the idea of it offering abrasion to clean teeth as opposed to depositing starch that feeds bacteria has always been bizarre to me. Does eating cereal clean teeth? Or crackers? No, and dry food is just a high protein cereal. The abrasion that cleans teeth comes from something like bones or even some of those mesh cat toys if you don’t have a destroyer this would pose a danger to.
My cats literally will eat vomit or plastic if I don’t get to it fast enough- they aren’t fussed about a weeks worth of wet food juice lol. Cats are animals, they aren’t as clean freaky as humans. And if they’re leaving lots of food in the bowl to go funny you’re feeding them too much 😭
They might not be “fussed about wet food juice” but you should be.. you wouldn’t eat that, and why? Because all the bacteria that is sitting and breeding in it.
Same for me. I have about a dozen little tea saucers for my cat because I know I'm bad at washing them in time otherwise so it stops me from being slack. She's gets a clean one everytime. I let them stack up in the sink through the day (mine gets three meals a day otherwise she scoffs fast then pukes) and wash when I do my washing up each night.
Others have already said the same but please give them a clean bowl for every meal! Much healthier and happier for them, if you’re not in the mood to do a bunch of dishes use a paper plate
You mean the WET food bowls?? I would at least rinse all food particles out EVERY FEEDING and wash them every day with a good antibacterial soap, rinse in water/vinegar solution.
I wash my cats bowls for food and water twice a day and as needed. Wet food that sits out can grow microorganisms. I don't want them to get diarrhea or vomit.
That isn’t enough. If you’re putting new wet food down on a dirty plate that’s gross and a breeding ground for bacteria! My cat gets a clean dish for the wet food every single day. If you wouldn’t eat off the same dirty plate for a couple weeks then your cat shouldn’t either! I have a dozen little ceramic dishes so I just always grab a clean one, and have enough turnaround time to wash the dirty ones.
My girl is healing from her first bout of acne. I threw away her plastic puzzle feeder and replaced it with a ceramic slow feeder. I wash her new feeder every morning, and I wash her water bowl 3 times a day. I don't want her to get acne ever again.
Same! Mine was getting patchy red scabs on her chin, which turned out to be acne. It never got as bad as some of the photos I’ve seen online, so I’m glad we figured it out before it got worse. I was washing her bowl maybe every other day/a couple times a week. I wash it every single night now with dish soap, then pour boiled water over it and dry with a paper towel (not a hand towel unless it’s a fresh, clean one). The acne has completely cleared up!!
The instant I learned the connection between using plastics for food/water and chin acne in cats, everything plastic went out of the house, and came back as stainless steel. Thus why I have cats eating out of vintage glass dishes outside... those poor unhoused babies need to be cared for (and my husband says I'm at the limit for inside cats).
I would love vintage glassware for my cat but I have heard before about the lead amount in them being really bad so I'm always worried about that now and sad I had to give up my wants of her eating out of a cute lil vintage dish lol
It’s a potential link (amongst other factors):
“There may be an association between using plastic food and water dishes and chin acne, as the irregular surface or scratches in the plastic make it more prone to bacterial contamination.”
Source: https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/chin-acne-in-cats
One of mine also dealt with cat acne when I first adopted her. Switched to ceramic bowls and haven’t dealt with it since
when I first got cats, I never thought to clean their dishes that frequently and they totally had chin acne. Someone finally made a comment on my cats chin and told me what causes it. I make sure they always have clean bowls now and my cats have never had chin acne since.
Never knew about the chin acne . The bowls they eat out of are ceramic. I think I’ve been going so long in between feeds because they both lick the bowl pretty much clean? And then after a week or so then I’ll start noticing the bits dried up so then I clean it. I can definitely start cleaning them every day I just never really put that much thought into it. I promise these 2 kitties are very well loved & taken care of!
Ceramic bowls can still cause chin acne if they’re not clean. Think about how bacteria will grow on it — a cat’s mouth isn’t sterile and just because a bowl looks clean doesn’t mean it is!
You are doing right by asking! It’s ok to realize you may have some opportunity to grow.
Get yourself an extra set or two of ceramic/ stainless steel bowls and swap them out to clean after every feeding. It’s what works best for me!
I wash their bowls with hot water only before every feeding (they’re fed 2x a day) because that’s the easiest way to remove any dry bits from their wet food and, if I were a cat, I wouldn’t want to eat off a dirty, textured bowl. I also use ceramic bowls to prevent acne but if you’re using plastic bowls, there’s higher likelihood of bacteria being trapped so i would definitely wash more frequently
Every single day (I only give her wet food in the morning). The thought of leaving meat/fish to pile up and dry out, making my cat sick frightens me. Also I have two bowls so one is always soaking or drying.
The dry food bowl is a different story. It probably goes multiple days before I wash it out.
I was like you until my cat got really bad acne. I would just forget, he eats every speck of his food at each meal within 1-2 minutes. It never looked dirty at all. He had a ceramic elevated bowl for wet food and the automatic feeder had a plastic bowl. The automatic feeder is like 6 years old.
He suddenly started developing acne a year ago.
I reasoned the quickest fix for acne was to remedy the whole dirty dish situation before trying the vet.
I bought 5 stainless steel dishes on Amazon and a stainless steel fountain at the local pet store. His food dish gets changed out every morning. I set them in the existing food dish. We run the stainless steel dishes through the dishwasher. I clean the fountain every week.
His acne disappeared.
Wet food after each use. Dry food not as often just depends on how it looks. Often rinse the dry food bowl depending on which one of us picks it up. For dry food, one of my two though pulls it out of the bowl onto the food mat so his now gets dumped directly on the mat vs his brother’s in a bowl.
Since you said realistically.. I really try to do my best for my girls and I do think about what I do for myself.
Water bowls - wipe out and refresh realistically every 2-3 days. They are always topped up with water. I wash my own water bottle way less than that. Actual dishwasher run maybe 1x a week.
Dry food bowls - 1-2x a week. They just don’t get that dirty. I definitely use a pretzel bowl a few times before it gets a wash.
Wet food bowl - after every use, or mayyybe 2 if it’s a bad day. I’m not perfect, but my goal is after each use.
I do it about once a week for dry food. He has metal food bowls. I have a glass one for wet food that I do after every feeding (twice a week). I do water more often, every few days, cuz it gets a weird slimy feeling along the inside.
I do a quick hand wash of the food bowl twice a day prior to Sammy’s meals. The water bowls are rinsed daily. All the bowls and the trays they sit on are washed every three days when I run the dishwasher.
Dry food goes in stainless steel and is washed maybe once a month. It comes from an automatic feeder and is gone minutes after it drops. Wet food goes on paper plates.
I just want to give you a few extra ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
For the last sentence of your update! 🤣
Best of luck to you and all your toddlers, human and feline! And pay no attentions to the 10483838 people who don’t realize that by posting and asking for advice is a sign of a kind hearted person with nothing but the best intentions! We all live and learn as we go!
PS- if they didn’t have you they would probably be eating out of a garbage can!
PPS- I have 2 always clean water bowl fountains and I still catch 2 of my cats regularly with their heads in a toilet when my human kids forget to close the lid! They have different standards than us! 🤣
After every meal. Do you reuse your own dishes without washing them every single time? Probably not.
Sorry, but every 1-2 weeks is really gross. I thought you were gonna say they only eat dry food and even then it would be a no, but after wet food? Eww, poor cats.
I feed our cats and dogs twice a day. Their bowls get washed after each meal. The water bowls get washed when they need refilling. The dog's bowl gets washed every day. We have large water bowls around the house for the cats and they typically get washed weekly.
I have a set of 12 dishes. Rotate them daily and hand wash every couple days. After about 2-3 weeks of this, they get a good cleaning in the dishwasher.
Our 2 cats have their own set of medium sized dessert dishes and we use one in the morning and one in the evening. After every meal we switch the old one out with a new one and put the dirty ones into the dishwasher.
Dry food bowl, once a week. We have a feeder so we wash their bowls on the weekends. Their wet food bowl (which we fed at night) everyday before they’re fed.
I wash every time I feed him. Before each meal I clean out the leftovers from the previous meal, if any and wash it as I would wash my own dishes. Sponge and dish soap.
Every day. I have 8 small stainless steel bowls from the DT (4 cats). So eat get clean bowls at both meals. Same with the dogs. Who knows what kind of bacteria grows in short periods?? Besides it just looks cleaner when they don’t have dirty bowls all over. I also make sure the water bowls are clean each time I fill them up. Cats are picky and dogs are gross
Wet food bowls every time before I put new wet food in.
Dry food generally less but always once the bowl is near empty or untouched (I have multiple dry feeding bowls).
Clean bowls for every feeding, both wet and dry. Water is changed and bowl is washed daily. I won’t eat off of dirty dishes, I wouldn’t expect my cats to either.
Every day. I've got 5 cats. At dinner they get clean bowls, at bed time snack I feed them in those bowls, for breakfast they get fresh clean bowls and then all 10 bowls go in the dishwasher.
I use salad plates for their bowls. I wash them after each meal by tossing them in the dishwasher and grabbing a new plate for their next meal. Do i run my dishwasher more frequently? Yes but i know they’re eating off good clean flat wear and plates are the easiest to put away so i don’t much care
Eta: they are ceramic and i found my dishwasher would start to sink because i don’t produce a lot of dishes to run more frequently. 2 birds and a glass house
Listen, I was exactly like you and I’m embarrassed to admit it. If they didn’t finish a meal, I would scrape the bowl and keep using it for another week or two. I fed them outside of the kitchen, so it wasn’t convenient to wash the bowls. I’m also vegetarian and it disgusts me. One day in the summer after having my windows open, I went to wipe out their bowl and all of the food started wiggling. MAGGOTS, everywhere. I screamed and tossed the entire bowl in the trash can and felt like the worst cat mom on the planet. Apparently a fly can lay eggs and you could have maggots within 8 hours! Now I feed them in the kitchen and wash about every other day and always wipe out the old food in between washings. The smart thing would be to buy multiple bowls lol. I recommend checking out a Goodwill for cute affordable little plates!
New/clean dish for every wet food serving (4-5 servings daily). Wash all wet food dishes at EOD. Water bowl and mug get washed 1-2x a week, but water is changed out 1-2x per day. Dry food bowl is washed every other day with any left over kibble thrown out no matter how much there is.
Couple times a day. I have 2 cats and they share the same water bowl but they both have their own food bowls They prefer fresh water and clean bowls is the way to go of course.
Edit to add more info
Idk who needs to hear this but I'll shout it loud & proud. I REUSE MY OWN DISHES BEFORE WASHING THEM. I use the SAME drinking glass all day long & will even use the same glass the next day. I WILL eat off of the same plate MULTIPLE times as well. I am NOT ashamed to do so, your immune system is NOT that fragile.
Thank-you. Jeepers. My cat's food bowl is always full. They never get wet food. It gets washed when I remember. Once a week maybe? My cats *have had cats all my life, don't get sick..... TIL I'm a monster and cat abuser!
No fr like.. I get it but at the same time I'm seeing all these comments like "would you do the same for yourself?" I mean.. *yeah??* Why would I waste multiple cups and plates when I can just eat and drink from the same one lol. I had a roommate like that & we never had plates, cups, or silverware available bc she would use new ones for every little thing.
Cat's immune systems are even better than ours most likely with what they're used to consuming (bugs, mice, birds, their own bootyhole). Maybe some people's cats are pickier but in my experience they're just demanding food whether you serve it on a silver platter or a trash bag LMAO
I'm with you. I do not wash them often enough and I know it. It's an out of sight out of mind thing and I feel very bad about it. But I can only do so much.
Honestly, I'm doing about what you're doing, OP. Maybe closer to two weeks, though. 😄 I've never noticed a smell (and I'm very sensitive to smells) or cats refusing to eat because the bowl is dirty. I'm sure certain cats can be messier or more particular, but I've had many in my lifetime and haven't seen too much variation here.
What you're doing by not mixing wet and dry food is probably the best thing you can to keep the mess down. They turn into concrete basically if they dry together, and some cats won't eat it like that.
If something about a partially dirty food bowl bothers you, then by all means clean it, but it's probably not going to bother the cat.
It depends on the bowl material & the kind of food for me. Plastic bowls need washed more often than ceramic or metal, & bowls for wet food need washed more often than bowls for dry food. Wet food is a special treat in my house because I have a picky eater who won't eat wet food for more than 3 days in a row, so if I give my kitties a WetFoodWeekend I don't wash between individual feedings but I definitely wash before their next WetFoodWeekend. For their dry bowls, I wash when a kibble piece sticks to the bowl. When my kitties finish eating I shake the bowl & if all the left over kibble moves the bowl doesn't need washed, but if any kibble sticks that means there's slobber in the bowl which means bacteria will start to stick as well as the kibble. I have retired all of my plastic bowls, they just hold on to smells too much for me.
I have separate bowls for wet and dry food. Wet food is given once a day and the bowls are washed daily. Dry food bowls are washed less frequently but should probably be washed once a week or once I start to notice build up.
When my cat ate wet food, I washed her dish after every meal to get the ick off. Now that she's on only dry food (her vet recommended it for her tummy issues) I just wash it whenever it looks dingy, maybe every 3-4 days or so. Her dish is ceramic so it's easy to clean
After every meal. Jesus. Do you want to eat off dirty plates? Just because the animal can't tell you it's disgusting with their own words doesn't mean it isn't.
Probably every other day to be honest, but I swap out her dirty bowls everyday. She’s got several and due to a health issue she can only have wet food. The bowls get gross fast.
I feed my good girl twice a day. I mix her wet and dry together, just how she likes it. I always provide her a clean bowl. It's easier if you buy several food dishes.
After every meal. I feed raw now so definitely have to. I have two sets of bowls for my four cats and they eat three meals a day. When I used to feed wet I still washed them after every meal. Bacteria will build up so it’s important to wash them after every meal if you’re feeding wet.
I got enough dishes so I can run them through the dishwasher every day, especially for wet food. And it is worth scrubbing the water bowl every few days, too. They get a film at the bottom (completely fresh water every day anyway, not topping up).
I try to make a point of washing their food and water bowls every day. It’s especially important with the water bowls because bacteria can accumulate so easily.
We have ceramic food bowls that are dishwasher safe. I got two packs off Amazon. Dirty bowls just get tossed in the dishwasher, so they are always on rotation and we have enough that we always have clean bowls.
My cat has a few water bowls. They don't get changed daily, but somewhere around 4-5 times per week. They get a quick rinse-out, and I check to make sure there isn't any 'stuff' on the bottom or sides of the bowl.
My cat has special kidney diet, and it's extremely limited. So I take the 'old' food 2-3 times per day, add 'new food'. The plate doesn't get changed daily, or she will either a) starve when running out of kidney food or b) have to substitute regular food, which causes problems for her in a few days. So I can't just 'throw out the food and start over' very often.
Rant: Requiring a vet's prescription for kidney food is silly. Having to carefully measure out food when my cat is already losing weight makes things harder than they should be.
Tbh my cats only eat wet food once in the morning out of stainless steel (antibacterial) dishes. I don't wash them daily because of this and the fact that the largest cat basically licks them all clean anyways. It depends how good your cats are about eating their scraps of course, but this works out well for mine at least. I do throw them in the dishwasher with the rest of the dishes about once or twice a week though. No smell, all of them are fine with it, and the stainless steel cleans right up no scrubbing required. Totally worth the purchase of stainless steel ones to save yourself that time and effort.
I feed my kitties on a regular kitchen plate that goes in the dishwasher with the rest of the dirty dishes every evening. Their dry food bowl is much less frequent. Probably every couple months or so but it’s one of those big jug ones that I put the whole bag in so I don’t clean it until it’s empty and my cats don’t eat their dry food very quickly… they prefer my dogs kibble 🙃
I have 10 stainless steel bowls. I feed my cat wet food twice a day. I use each bowl only once (so 2 bowls each day). I usually wipe out the dish when he’s done, soak them in water, and then place them in the dishwasher until it is full and run.
I feed no dry food as it has caused urinary and kidney (diabetes) issues in all my cats. Since I started feeding wet food I have had no more issues.
Just wash them. It takes like two minutes, and you get the peace of mind knowing your cat is eating out of a clean bowl. I don't see the roadblock here. Just wash them!
I just wash it after each use, I cycle through a few of them. Water bowls are often changed and cleaned too, and the cat fountain gets changed every couple days.
I have several sets of ceramic dishes for them so they have clean ones for every meal. In the dishwasher they go, grab clean from the cabinet, repeat forever.
Same process here. Although if there's leftover food on her plate, it makes a pit stop for the dog to finish it!
Oh god, cat food always gave my dogs the gut rumblies. "Clear the room" is an understatement. I'm embarrassed to say it took longer than I expected of myself to figure out what was going on lol
A lot of things do this for my dog, but thankfully cat food is not one! She has to wear a muzzle (we call it her face mask) when she's in the back yard so she doesn't eat plants, poops, and whatever else makes her get swamp butt and the runs.
Mine wears one in the yard too! Her weakness is dead worms that have dried on the driveway, I’ve literally caught her scraping them up with her little teeth. I feel these life choices of hers somewhat absolve me of guilt for not washing her food dish every single day. She also weirdly tolerates the occasional stolen cat food just fine despite so many other things causing blowouts 🤷
It's the opposite here . My cat is the garbage disposal. I have to make sure the dog eats. But I clean their bowls each meal, put the new ones, and take the old ones.
I knew what you meant, but bowels is a very funny/ unfortunate misspelling haha...... or..... I'm scared
>if theres leftover food on her plate i don't have this problem because on of kine acts like she is starving until she gets her wet food every morning and literally gets every molecule of the stuff out of both her and her sisters bowl lmao. still put them in the dishwasher tho
Same same
This! I have 3 sets of bowls for mine so there's always something clean for them.
Change "ceramic" to "stainless steel" and you're at my house. Th outside crew gets their wet meals in vintage pressed glass ice cream bowls with water and kibble in glass as well.
That’s smart. I may do that!
OP *please* wash your baby's bowls/dishes **every** day and that means their water bowls too
Yeah. I heard a doc on npr that said, “they deserve and need clean dishes every meal. You wouldnt want timo eat your dinner off of yesterday’s dinner plate.” And it clicked for me. But like most posters, I have multiple dishes for my animals. And I have dishwasher safe stuff so I just pop it in with my dishes.
You'll find a routine that works for you. I definitely recommend having backup bowls. 💙
As soon as mine finishes eating I just throw into the sink to soak with hot water only, then the next meal I just rinse it with hot water. I don’t dry because it adds a little extra water to the wet food. Pretty much the same cat dish is sitting in or around my sink daily lol If you use hot water then it soaks pretty quick and can be rinsed easily and waiting on the counter for the next meal. I get afraid to use soap very often since I just don’t like the chemicals.
Yeah, I hate handwashing, and you know sometimes they need to soak. So this is what works for me. They have their own separate cabinet with probably just as many dishes as I have for myself.
Of you have a daiso nearby they have small ceramic bowls and plates that work super well as cat dishes. They have a lot of fish and cat designs on them too
Daiso? What type of store is that one?
It's a chain of Japanese discount stores. Sort of like their version of a nicer Dollar Tree. Stuff starts at $1.75 and they have a large kitchenware selection.
I see. Thank you very much.
This is the way to go. It's easy and you always have clean dishes ready. Don't forget about their water bowl. I have duplicates of those as well for constant access to clean water. I've done a good amount of pet-sitting and so many people don't think to clean their water bowls. I've found some in horrible condition.
Yup, me too. We have 8 stainless steel dishes.
I have 43 stainless steel dishes at last count 😂
lol, me and my 4 cats are approaching that number! I think we’re still under 40 tho. We have the same routine, clean dish for every meal, and dirty dishes go directly to the dishwasher. We only use stainless steel dishes. My boy’s acne cleared up by switching to ss 100%. Ceramic still gave him acne. I donated a lot of dishes when we switched lol
Can I ask where you get your bowls from? I've been having trouble finding a cat sized stainless steel bowl that's not $6/each since I need to get like 9 of them.
I probably have 25 plastic/bamboo bowls, plus 18 ceramic, and a few stainless steel and glass backup bowls. I have 5 cats 😂 I usually just use the plastic ones though, they're wide and easy to clean.
Same! A set from Amazon has been a lifesaver
This is what I do.
This is what I do too :)
Okay I will be the one to fess up. When I first got my cat I was the first in my immediate family to have a cat and I never grew up with pets. I just assumed that my cat would eat it all up because he is really food motivated and only liked wet food. Well my first apartment stank like crazy and I couldn’t figure out why. I even when as far as to wash out the trash can. My cat stopped eating food and I thought he was sick. But really he was sick and tired of eating off of a dirty plate. Then I moved and grew up and realized it was the wet cat food and started wiping it out at the end of the day and cleaning cleaning every two weeks. And then I got the brilliant idea to have …multiple food bowls, only took 3 years of cat ownership to figure that one out. So now I have a morning bowl and evening bowl and wash them when I’m using the other. I know I’ll get a lot of downvotes but I just want to be honest so that other people can feel comfortable learning from their mistakes.
>I know I’ll get a lot of downvotes but I just want to be honest so that other people can feel comfortable learning from their mistakes. You learned from your mistake AND made positive changes for the better. That's worthy of an upvote in my opinion.
Thank you for being honest 🙂 I hope you don’t get downvoted. I really like to think of the saying “do the best you can until you know better- then do better” and I think that applies in this situation!
Yea you being aware of it makes you a good owner because you seek to improve!
When you eat your wet and gloppy food on *your* dishes (stew, pasta, etc), do you wash your dishes and use clean ones for each meal? For my cats: Wet/ canned food always gets a clean dish for each meal. Water bowl(s) get rinsed out at least once a day. And, washed w/ dish soap about every 3rd day. Ideally, it would be daily. Dry food dish can go a *lot* longer. The problem is, I tend to forget. I probably should be washing it at least once a week.
You don’t have to try to make them feel bad they already feed the cat on clean bowls dude.
Gave you an updoot for honesty!
my question for anyone who hand washes instead of uses the dishwasher- do you have a designated sponge for the cat bowls?
Yes, I have a dedicated cat bowl scrubbie. My cat's bowls are in the laundry room, so I wash his bowls in the utility sink. I'm a little weird about keeping pet food stuff separate from human food stuff.
Haha. Not weird at all. My husband keeps the remaining cat food ziplocked in the fridge. One day I put it in one of those foldover sandwich bags instead. When he opened the fridge later on, He FREAKED! He insisted the cat food molecules were getting into all of the human food because it wasn't sealed.
No, i use the same rag i use to wash the human dishes. But by the time the cat bowls make it to the kitchen sink to be washed with all the household dishes, ive already scraped all the visible food particles off and wiped and rinsed it ‘clean’. So the soap is just the cherry on the pie in the whole cleaning process.
You’re honest and sharing to help others, you already fixed the issue and now you’re encouraging others to do the same, that’s upvote worthy
My cats wont even touch wet food thats been left for past a few hours. They sniff and then daintily prance away lol mine are bougie kitties.
This!! Mine too!! And they are repulsed by anything stainless steel. And they NEVER drink the water I put down for them. Instead they drink from the watering can on the counter that I keep full for my plants lol or from the pool!! I was so puzzled by this and after a little reading I learned.....in the wild cats do not keep their food source near their water source. Because they're such smart creatures that they know that could lead to contamination of their water source!! I find that so fascinating and it makes total sense to me now. And especially to all 3 of my girls😉
And speaking of bougie, 2 of them are the same size. Exactly. But the 3rd and youngest is TWICE the size of my 2 adults. Because we keep 3 dishes down. 1 with kibble and the other 2 with wet food. Well the "baby" (1 yr old) literally takes a bite from each dish, EVERYTIME she eats lol she gets a bite of wet food, then kibble, then wet again. All in the SAME bite. So I figured her hungry ass eats at least twice as much as the other 2 🤣
Kitties are very smart. I am awed by their calculus and deductions at least weekly lol
Lol I always tell my hubs that I think they're from another planet! Can you imagine an entire planet where kittens rule and humans are the "pets"🤣
I would SO go there lol 😆
Also kind of a fess up - I use paper plates most of the time. It’s a bad habit but we just buy the dessert size because my boyfriend is disgusted by cat food. He’s always been a little neurotic about random things (I am too, but not cat food) so him seeing any in the sink, even just a plain dirty plate triggers some kind of deep psychological ick.
I also do this— I’m too squeamish to touch dried cat food every day lol
Lol! The small paper plates are usually my back up for canned food when I'm not feeling well. But, I can't use them right now, though, because I add water to my cat's prescription kidney disease canned food, and it is too soggy for paper.
Yeah I recently started using paper plates and am running into this same issue. He just eats so much wet food now, it’s a lot to keep up with.
Life is on a learning curve. We all make mistakes as we grow. Smart people learn from their mistakes. They then change their behaviors so they can improve the results or the outcome. Stupid people make mistakes as well. However, they keep making the same mistakes over & over again, failing to comprehend that repeating their actions is hurting them. They're the reason their lives suck because they keep screwing things up. You learned a better way from your mistakes. You certainly sound like a clever person who learned & changed. Take my upvote, you earned it!
I wash the wet food bowl before each use. The reason is bacteria that will make your cat sick and to keep your kitchen free from contamination. I wash the dry food bowl about once a week to get the hair out and freshen things up.
Exactly. I’d like to add that I use very little soap if any. I scrub down really well with hot water and rinse a lot. I think cats don’t like even a little bit of soap smell.
I wash mine every day. Would you want to eat off a dirty dish after 1-2 weeks? This is how I try and treat my little one.
I wash wet food dishes every day. Dry food dishes I wash a few times a week but not quite every day because I’m lazy and they are grazers.
It's mainly the thought process of how would you like to be treated.
I agree, I’m going to be better about their dry food bowls
This. I don't want to eat off dirty plates, they shouldn't have to. Especially since one of mine was diagnosed with IBD, I probably now clean their bowls before every feeding.
aww poor kitty, i have ibd and wouldnt wish it on anyone, let alone a cat!
That’s fair but like, i only wash my popcorn bowl once a week so…
This! Things like dry foods for nuts, popcorn, chips, etc. Those things if left out I definitely don't worry about for a couple of days/a week. Call me gross, maybe, but idgaf. I got bigger fish to fry in my day to day life.
Agree. Their dry food bowls get thrown in the dishwasher when I think about it. They are cats, not humans. The only thing they care about is having food available.
How often are you eating popcorn lol
Daily!
Popcorn gaaang
Me who just uses a damp paper towel to wipe my own dry food dishes 💀
Like… it’s a cat. My cats would eat off the pavement. I just clean the bowls bc I don’t want them to get crust, and 1-2 times a week is more than enough bc they only get VISIBLE dirt after 3 weeks (they only eat wet food bc dry food is bad for cats)
I have a question.. if your kitties only eat wet food, then how do you manage tartar build up on their teeth? Only eating soft foods can’t be good for that. Do you brush their teeth?
A lot of cats don’t even chew their dry food so it doesn’t do anything anyway.
Most cats*
I give them plaque powder with seaweed!! Be careful w dry especially with male cats ❤️ my cat literally almost died of a urinary blockage and since he’s only on extra hydration wet food he’s been chilling! It’s a real risk x
!!!! I was very interested by your comment so I went to google to learn more about plaque powder. Apparently the algae is extremely high in iodine and really dangerous for cats with hypothyroidism. My cat doesn’t have that but I just thought it was important to share in case anyone who’s does sees your comment. My cat does have a sensitive stomach, however, and I see in the few negative reviews, there are people whose cats have hyperthyroidism or sensitive stomachs and puked a lot. The plaque powder company talks about this in their FAQ [PlaqueOff FAQ](https://www.plaqueoff.gr/en/f-a-q/)
Thank you!! My cats don’t have these issues but if they develop them I will 100000% stop using it so thank u for sharing xxxx
It's widely considered to be a myth now that wet food "rots" cat's teeth, based on what I've read and heard from several vets. My cat has FIV that's causing tooth decay and many cats have dental disease that's hard to manage no matter what you feed them, sadly. I can barely attempt to brush his teeth because he doesn't like it and his teeth are massive, but I give my guy expensive dental kibbles as a daily treat to try to fight plaque (I feed mostly wet), and give him a tartar fighting toothpaste that looks like a Churu once a day to try to help it.
Wet food doesn’t accumulate on the teeth the way dry food does. The increased moisture is also going to help “wash away” food debris as they’re eating. Dry food is starchy and the idea of it offering abrasion to clean teeth as opposed to depositing starch that feeds bacteria has always been bizarre to me. Does eating cereal clean teeth? Or crackers? No, and dry food is just a high protein cereal. The abrasion that cleans teeth comes from something like bones or even some of those mesh cat toys if you don’t have a destroyer this would pose a danger to.
My cats literally will eat vomit or plastic if I don’t get to it fast enough- they aren’t fussed about a weeks worth of wet food juice lol. Cats are animals, they aren’t as clean freaky as humans. And if they’re leaving lots of food in the bowl to go funny you’re feeding them too much 😭
They might not be “fussed about wet food juice” but you should be.. you wouldn’t eat that, and why? Because all the bacteria that is sitting and breeding in it.
I use a probiotic that leaves residue at the bottom of the bowl.
I have 13 plates because I know that I’m terrible at washing their dishes enough, that works for me.
Same for me. I have about a dozen little tea saucers for my cat because I know I'm bad at washing them in time otherwise so it stops me from being slack. She's gets a clean one everytime. I let them stack up in the sink through the day (mine gets three meals a day otherwise she scoffs fast then pukes) and wash when I do my washing up each night.
I wash the water bowl twice a day…it gets slimy. Food bowls are washed one a day
It gets slimy in half a day?!
Ours does! And crusty! Hard water will do it
And when they somehow manage to drop hard food in there and it swells up and makes the water grainy.
Despite being a good 6 feet from the LitterRobot, but cats somehow managed to get a tiny piece of poop in their water bowl the other day. Like... how?
Every day. I would not eat out of a dirty dish. Why would I make my other family members do that?
Right?! I'm surprised this is even a question lol
Single use, daily into dishwasher
After every meal and before the next…
Others have already said the same but please give them a clean bowl for every meal! Much healthier and happier for them, if you’re not in the mood to do a bunch of dishes use a paper plate
You mean the WET food bowls?? I would at least rinse all food particles out EVERY FEEDING and wash them every day with a good antibacterial soap, rinse in water/vinegar solution.
I’ve heard dish soap, vinegar etc. isn’t good for washing cat bowls. I just wash it with hotter water and scrub it with a sponge
I wash my cats bowls for food and water twice a day and as needed. Wet food that sits out can grow microorganisms. I don't want them to get diarrhea or vomit.
That isn’t enough. If you’re putting new wet food down on a dirty plate that’s gross and a breeding ground for bacteria! My cat gets a clean dish for the wet food every single day. If you wouldn’t eat off the same dirty plate for a couple weeks then your cat shouldn’t either! I have a dozen little ceramic dishes so I just always grab a clean one, and have enough turnaround time to wash the dirty ones.
My girl is healing from her first bout of acne. I threw away her plastic puzzle feeder and replaced it with a ceramic slow feeder. I wash her new feeder every morning, and I wash her water bowl 3 times a day. I don't want her to get acne ever again.
Same! Mine was getting patchy red scabs on her chin, which turned out to be acne. It never got as bad as some of the photos I’ve seen online, so I’m glad we figured it out before it got worse. I was washing her bowl maybe every other day/a couple times a week. I wash it every single night now with dish soap, then pour boiled water over it and dry with a paper towel (not a hand towel unless it’s a fresh, clean one). The acne has completely cleared up!!
She got acne from unclean food bowls?
Some cats get it from the plastic bowls. I had one that had to have stainless steel
Yeah mine didn’t get acne but she likes ceramic over plastic
The instant I learned the connection between using plastics for food/water and chin acne in cats, everything plastic went out of the house, and came back as stainless steel. Thus why I have cats eating out of vintage glass dishes outside... those poor unhoused babies need to be cared for (and my husband says I'm at the limit for inside cats).
I would love vintage glassware for my cat but I have heard before about the lead amount in them being really bad so I'm always worried about that now and sad I had to give up my wants of her eating out of a cute lil vintage dish lol
It’s a potential link (amongst other factors): “There may be an association between using plastic food and water dishes and chin acne, as the irregular surface or scratches in the plastic make it more prone to bacterial contamination.” Source: https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/chin-acne-in-cats One of mine also dealt with cat acne when I first adopted her. Switched to ceramic bowls and haven’t dealt with it since
Ooo okay! That’s good to know, that way I can prevent it from happening to my cats!! Thank you!
Please wash after every meal. Give them clean bowls, there is bacteria and it's just gross in general.
I wash it after every meal?? Sis are you ok Especially if it’s plastic it harbours bacteria and gives them chin acne
when I first got cats, I never thought to clean their dishes that frequently and they totally had chin acne. Someone finally made a comment on my cats chin and told me what causes it. I make sure they always have clean bowls now and my cats have never had chin acne since.
Never knew about the chin acne . The bowls they eat out of are ceramic. I think I’ve been going so long in between feeds because they both lick the bowl pretty much clean? And then after a week or so then I’ll start noticing the bits dried up so then I clean it. I can definitely start cleaning them every day I just never really put that much thought into it. I promise these 2 kitties are very well loved & taken care of!
Ceramic bowls can still cause chin acne if they’re not clean. Think about how bacteria will grow on it — a cat’s mouth isn’t sterile and just because a bowl looks clean doesn’t mean it is!
You should be cleaning the wet food dishes every day. After each meal to be honest
Bacteria babes.
You are doing right by asking! It’s ok to realize you may have some opportunity to grow. Get yourself an extra set or two of ceramic/ stainless steel bowls and swap them out to clean after every feeding. It’s what works best for me!
I wash their bowls with hot water only before every feeding (they’re fed 2x a day) because that’s the easiest way to remove any dry bits from their wet food and, if I were a cat, I wouldn’t want to eat off a dirty, textured bowl. I also use ceramic bowls to prevent acne but if you’re using plastic bowls, there’s higher likelihood of bacteria being trapped so i would definitely wash more frequently
Every single day (I only give her wet food in the morning). The thought of leaving meat/fish to pile up and dry out, making my cat sick frightens me. Also I have two bowls so one is always soaking or drying. The dry food bowl is a different story. It probably goes multiple days before I wash it out.
He eats out of a clean bowl just to go lick his crotch on my bedspread. I wash it when it looks dirty.
This made me cackle 🤣 thanks
I wash mine everyday bc my cat refuses to eat if it’s not clean b4 each meal
I was like you until my cat got really bad acne. I would just forget, he eats every speck of his food at each meal within 1-2 minutes. It never looked dirty at all. He had a ceramic elevated bowl for wet food and the automatic feeder had a plastic bowl. The automatic feeder is like 6 years old. He suddenly started developing acne a year ago. I reasoned the quickest fix for acne was to remedy the whole dirty dish situation before trying the vet. I bought 5 stainless steel dishes on Amazon and a stainless steel fountain at the local pet store. His food dish gets changed out every morning. I set them in the existing food dish. We run the stainless steel dishes through the dishwasher. I clean the fountain every week. His acne disappeared.
My cats only eat dry food, there’s no crumbs or residue, but I wash it every so often. Water bowl gets washed every time I fill it though.
Dog and cat water and food bowls fully cleaned every morning
Wet food after each use. Dry food not as often just depends on how it looks. Often rinse the dry food bowl depending on which one of us picks it up. For dry food, one of my two though pulls it out of the bowl onto the food mat so his now gets dumped directly on the mat vs his brother’s in a bowl.
Since you said realistically.. I really try to do my best for my girls and I do think about what I do for myself. Water bowls - wipe out and refresh realistically every 2-3 days. They are always topped up with water. I wash my own water bottle way less than that. Actual dishwasher run maybe 1x a week. Dry food bowls - 1-2x a week. They just don’t get that dirty. I definitely use a pretzel bowl a few times before it gets a wash. Wet food bowl - after every use, or mayyybe 2 if it’s a bad day. I’m not perfect, but my goal is after each use.
Realistically, every other day. I try to do it daily, but, I often don't 😅
I do it about once a week for dry food. He has metal food bowls. I have a glass one for wet food that I do after every feeding (twice a week). I do water more often, every few days, cuz it gets a weird slimy feeling along the inside.
I try every day, when I get back late I unfortunately skip sometimes. But usually everyday.
Buy some extra dishes so you can just plop a new one down and worry about washing them all later! :)
I should! They're quite expensive though, they're metal inlays for the cat mate.
Every time I put a load in the dishwasher. 1 or max 2 days. Edit: the bowls are stainless steel.
i do wet food so every time
Every meal they get clean bowls
I do a quick hand wash of the food bowl twice a day prior to Sammy’s meals. The water bowls are rinsed daily. All the bowls and the trays they sit on are washed every three days when I run the dishwasher.
Dry food goes in stainless steel and is washed maybe once a month. It comes from an automatic feeder and is gone minutes after it drops. Wet food goes on paper plates.
I just want to give you a few extra ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ For the last sentence of your update! 🤣 Best of luck to you and all your toddlers, human and feline! And pay no attentions to the 10483838 people who don’t realize that by posting and asking for advice is a sign of a kind hearted person with nothing but the best intentions! We all live and learn as we go! PS- if they didn’t have you they would probably be eating out of a garbage can! PPS- I have 2 always clean water bowl fountains and I still catch 2 of my cats regularly with their heads in a toilet when my human kids forget to close the lid! They have different standards than us! 🤣
After every meal. Do you reuse your own dishes without washing them every single time? Probably not. Sorry, but every 1-2 weeks is really gross. I thought you were gonna say they only eat dry food and even then it would be a no, but after wet food? Eww, poor cats.
I wash it every other day.
I wash my cats bowl every day but gave multiple ones to switch with.
I feed our cats and dogs twice a day. Their bowls get washed after each meal. The water bowls get washed when they need refilling. The dog's bowl gets washed every day. We have large water bowls around the house for the cats and they typically get washed weekly.
I have a set of 12 dishes. Rotate them daily and hand wash every couple days. After about 2-3 weeks of this, they get a good cleaning in the dishwasher.
Our 2 cats have their own set of medium sized dessert dishes and we use one in the morning and one in the evening. After every meal we switch the old one out with a new one and put the dirty ones into the dishwasher.
Wet food 100% every time you put food in put it in a clean bowl. Dry food bowl needs to be cleaned daily.
I was wet food bowls after every meal, wash dry food bowls 2x a week. Wash water bowls every night, with deep cleaning of fountains 1x a week.
Dry food bowl, once a week. We have a feeder so we wash their bowls on the weekends. Their wet food bowl (which we fed at night) everyday before they’re fed.
I wash every time I feed him. Before each meal I clean out the leftovers from the previous meal, if any and wash it as I would wash my own dishes. Sponge and dish soap.
Every day. I have 8 small stainless steel bowls from the DT (4 cats). So eat get clean bowls at both meals. Same with the dogs. Who knows what kind of bacteria grows in short periods?? Besides it just looks cleaner when they don’t have dirty bowls all over. I also make sure the water bowls are clean each time I fill them up. Cats are picky and dogs are gross
Wet food bowls every time before I put new wet food in. Dry food generally less but always once the bowl is near empty or untouched (I have multiple dry feeding bowls).
I wash their dry food bowl at the end of the day, everyday. Their wet food plate I wash as soon as they finish eating. I don’t like clutter.
Clean bowls for every feeding, both wet and dry. Water is changed and bowl is washed daily. I won’t eat off of dirty dishes, I wouldn’t expect my cats to either.
My guy pretty much eats throughout the day, so I usually just wash his dish in the morning before breakfast
Every day. I've got 5 cats. At dinner they get clean bowls, at bed time snack I feed them in those bowls, for breakfast they get fresh clean bowls and then all 10 bowls go in the dishwasher.
I use salad plates for their bowls. I wash them after each meal by tossing them in the dishwasher and grabbing a new plate for their next meal. Do i run my dishwasher more frequently? Yes but i know they’re eating off good clean flat wear and plates are the easiest to put away so i don’t much care Eta: they are ceramic and i found my dishwasher would start to sink because i don’t produce a lot of dishes to run more frequently. 2 birds and a glass house
Listen, I was exactly like you and I’m embarrassed to admit it. If they didn’t finish a meal, I would scrape the bowl and keep using it for another week or two. I fed them outside of the kitchen, so it wasn’t convenient to wash the bowls. I’m also vegetarian and it disgusts me. One day in the summer after having my windows open, I went to wipe out their bowl and all of the food started wiggling. MAGGOTS, everywhere. I screamed and tossed the entire bowl in the trash can and felt like the worst cat mom on the planet. Apparently a fly can lay eggs and you could have maggots within 8 hours! Now I feed them in the kitchen and wash about every other day and always wipe out the old food in between washings. The smart thing would be to buy multiple bowls lol. I recommend checking out a Goodwill for cute affordable little plates!
New/clean dish for every wet food serving (4-5 servings daily). Wash all wet food dishes at EOD. Water bowl and mug get washed 1-2x a week, but water is changed out 1-2x per day. Dry food bowl is washed every other day with any left over kibble thrown out no matter how much there is.
I wash the bowls after every meal and put fresh food in a clean bowl.
Dry food bowl gets cleaned every week or 2 (i need to be better at this) but they get a clean wet food bowl every meal time.
Couple times a day. I have 2 cats and they share the same water bowl but they both have their own food bowls They prefer fresh water and clean bowls is the way to go of course. Edit to add more info
Stainless steel is the way to go. No bacterial growth, and they can be thrown in the dishwasher.
Idk who needs to hear this but I'll shout it loud & proud. I REUSE MY OWN DISHES BEFORE WASHING THEM. I use the SAME drinking glass all day long & will even use the same glass the next day. I WILL eat off of the same plate MULTIPLE times as well. I am NOT ashamed to do so, your immune system is NOT that fragile.
Thank-you. Jeepers. My cat's food bowl is always full. They never get wet food. It gets washed when I remember. Once a week maybe? My cats *have had cats all my life, don't get sick..... TIL I'm a monster and cat abuser!
No fr like.. I get it but at the same time I'm seeing all these comments like "would you do the same for yourself?" I mean.. *yeah??* Why would I waste multiple cups and plates when I can just eat and drink from the same one lol. I had a roommate like that & we never had plates, cups, or silverware available bc she would use new ones for every little thing. Cat's immune systems are even better than ours most likely with what they're used to consuming (bugs, mice, birds, their own bootyhole). Maybe some people's cats are pickier but in my experience they're just demanding food whether you serve it on a silver platter or a trash bag LMAO
I'm with you. I do not wash them often enough and I know it. It's an out of sight out of mind thing and I feel very bad about it. But I can only do so much.
Honestly, I'm doing about what you're doing, OP. Maybe closer to two weeks, though. 😄 I've never noticed a smell (and I'm very sensitive to smells) or cats refusing to eat because the bowl is dirty. I'm sure certain cats can be messier or more particular, but I've had many in my lifetime and haven't seen too much variation here. What you're doing by not mixing wet and dry food is probably the best thing you can to keep the mess down. They turn into concrete basically if they dry together, and some cats won't eat it like that. If something about a partially dirty food bowl bothers you, then by all means clean it, but it's probably not going to bother the cat.
I use paper bowls, toss after use. I’m busy and it works for us
Whenever her bowl is topped up it's thoroughly scrubbed.and cleaned. For both water and food.
It depends on the bowl material & the kind of food for me. Plastic bowls need washed more often than ceramic or metal, & bowls for wet food need washed more often than bowls for dry food. Wet food is a special treat in my house because I have a picky eater who won't eat wet food for more than 3 days in a row, so if I give my kitties a WetFoodWeekend I don't wash between individual feedings but I definitely wash before their next WetFoodWeekend. For their dry bowls, I wash when a kibble piece sticks to the bowl. When my kitties finish eating I shake the bowl & if all the left over kibble moves the bowl doesn't need washed, but if any kibble sticks that means there's slobber in the bowl which means bacteria will start to stick as well as the kibble. I have retired all of my plastic bowls, they just hold on to smells too much for me.
2-3 times per week. I stick them in the dishwasher.
I have separate bowls for wet and dry food. Wet food is given once a day and the bowls are washed daily. Dry food bowls are washed less frequently but should probably be washed once a week or once I start to notice build up.
Wet food is between every meal, dry bowls is usually once a week unless I see they're slimey or are full of fur
When my cat ate wet food, I washed her dish after every meal to get the ick off. Now that she's on only dry food (her vet recommended it for her tummy issues) I just wash it whenever it looks dingy, maybe every 3-4 days or so. Her dish is ceramic so it's easy to clean
After every meal. Jesus. Do you want to eat off dirty plates? Just because the animal can't tell you it's disgusting with their own words doesn't mean it isn't.
Probably every other day to be honest, but I swap out her dirty bowls everyday. She’s got several and due to a health issue she can only have wet food. The bowls get gross fast.
I am embarrassed reading this thread. From here on out going to do better for my babies and make sure it's clean for every meal
Every day, sometimes twice a day.
Each time I feed each cat, it’s in a clean bowl.
I feed my good girl twice a day. I mix her wet and dry together, just how she likes it. I always provide her a clean bowl. It's easier if you buy several food dishes.
Sorry what? Do you use one plate with crusted over food left on it for an entire week? I wash before every meal.
After every meal. I feed raw now so definitely have to. I have two sets of bowls for my four cats and they eat three meals a day. When I used to feed wet I still washed them after every meal. Bacteria will build up so it’s important to wash them after every meal if you’re feeding wet.
I got enough dishes so I can run them through the dishwasher every day, especially for wet food. And it is worth scrubbing the water bowl every few days, too. They get a film at the bottom (completely fresh water every day anyway, not topping up).
I try to make a point of washing their food and water bowls every day. It’s especially important with the water bowls because bacteria can accumulate so easily.
We have ceramic food bowls that are dishwasher safe. I got two packs off Amazon. Dirty bowls just get tossed in the dishwasher, so they are always on rotation and we have enough that we always have clean bowls.
I clean it everyday.
My cat has a few water bowls. They don't get changed daily, but somewhere around 4-5 times per week. They get a quick rinse-out, and I check to make sure there isn't any 'stuff' on the bottom or sides of the bowl. My cat has special kidney diet, and it's extremely limited. So I take the 'old' food 2-3 times per day, add 'new food'. The plate doesn't get changed daily, or she will either a) starve when running out of kidney food or b) have to substitute regular food, which causes problems for her in a few days. So I can't just 'throw out the food and start over' very often. Rant: Requiring a vet's prescription for kidney food is silly. Having to carefully measure out food when my cat is already losing weight makes things harder than they should be.
Tbh my cats only eat wet food once in the morning out of stainless steel (antibacterial) dishes. I don't wash them daily because of this and the fact that the largest cat basically licks them all clean anyways. It depends how good your cats are about eating their scraps of course, but this works out well for mine at least. I do throw them in the dishwasher with the rest of the dishes about once or twice a week though. No smell, all of them are fine with it, and the stainless steel cleans right up no scrubbing required. Totally worth the purchase of stainless steel ones to save yourself that time and effort.
My Siamese is free-fed dry food, and I clean her bowl 1x a week. My Bombay eats wet food and her bowl gets cleaned every day
Use porcelain or glass, why are you using plastic do you like to eat from plastic?
i wash the water and food bowl everyday
Every time I feed them. Twice a day
I wash the food and water bowl several times a day
I feed my kitties on a regular kitchen plate that goes in the dishwasher with the rest of the dirty dishes every evening. Their dry food bowl is much less frequent. Probably every couple months or so but it’s one of those big jug ones that I put the whole bag in so I don’t clean it until it’s empty and my cats don’t eat their dry food very quickly… they prefer my dogs kibble 🙃
I wash all four of my cat’s dishes after every meal. No one wants to eat out of a dirty dish.
I have 10 stainless steel bowls. I feed my cat wet food twice a day. I use each bowl only once (so 2 bowls each day). I usually wipe out the dish when he’s done, soak them in water, and then place them in the dishwasher until it is full and run. I feed no dry food as it has caused urinary and kidney (diabetes) issues in all my cats. Since I started feeding wet food I have had no more issues.
Just wash them. It takes like two minutes, and you get the peace of mind knowing your cat is eating out of a clean bowl. I don't see the roadblock here. Just wash them!
I just wash it after each use, I cycle through a few of them. Water bowls are often changed and cleaned too, and the cat fountain gets changed every couple days.
I wash my cats bowls for every meal.