Automatic Drinking Fountain
Brand and Model of Fountain
Drinkwell 360 - plastic version, purchased 2009
How Does This Product Compare With Other Fountains?
I have no experience with any other fountains.
My Review
I never felt the need for a fountain until I brought home 2 sisters last spring who have an absolute fascination with water. They would play a shuffling game with their water bowl and water would be sloshed all over my kitchen floor. They also love playing in the bath tub. The bath tub was an easy fix - I put a bowl of water in there and the shuffling game continues. The kitchen was another story and that's when I started looking at water fountains. The Drinkwell 360 appealed to me because it has constantly running water that you are able to control by changing the pieces (1-5 streams) and by dialing the flow up or down. I was hesitant to try a fountain because of the price but I can tell you now that the 60-70 dollars I spent was well worth it!
The girls love that the water is constantly in motion and one of them can spend an hour just watching it. But what surprised me most was my older 14-year old cat loved it too! He stands at the spigot and drinks away. Up until then I had never seen him drink water. I knew he must be because his vet visits were always good but now he seems to enjoy drinking water!
As I mentioned earlier, the flow can be controlled 2 ways and I usually opt for a medium flow - not too slow and not too fast. I've settled on the 3 spigot version as that seems to work best for us.
Cleaning this is a bit of a chore. Everything has to be taken apart and it can be difficult to reach into some of the smaller crevices to clean it. I am buying the brush kit they make for this and hopefully that will take care of it. As with anything, taking it apart is much easier than trying to put it back together and I wish there was an easier way to do it. I have great difficulty trying to line up holes when nothing is transparent. The other con is the cord. It has an electric pump so I've taken to placing the unit near the wall and taping the cord to the wall to keep everyone from tripping over it. Filters can be purchased in 3-packs and I use one every 3 weeks.
All in all, this was a fantastic investment. I am now seriously considering investing in the stainless steel version of the Drinkwell 360 but the plastic version I have still works and works great. I highly recommend this fountain!
