Tommy Gargoyle makes me nuts. I love him, but nothing is ever easy.

“oh… you need to feed separate diets? You should get a microchip feeder!”

Even I will say this to people on the cat forums as if it were a cure-all for the dilemma, but I will also weave them this brief tale of the Anomaly:

My bubba can break into any feeder. The audience is astounded. The vets are astounded. Apparently, this isn’t a widely seen issue?

We started with the GateFeeder in 2013. I would link you to the website, but it may be down permanently.

The concept is that the door on the front is held stationary by a little plastic post at the bottom that stays up to lock it, and when the microchip comes near, the post drops to open the door and allow access to the food dish inside. It’s even built to be able to keep wet food out more safely by having space underneath the metal dish for ice packs. The retail was $249.

What does my bubba do?

Tommy Gargoyle

He walks up next to a girl that is eating, and she slowly closes the door that was resting on her head while she ate. It doesn’t meet the latch. The girl didn’t finish her meal intentionally, but instead is confused why he’s in her personal space. IT DOESN’T LATCH UNLESS THEY PULL THEIR HEAD OUT QUICKLY ENOUGH.

Bubba…

Then a few years later, SureFlap launched a feeder. The SureFeed debuted at $149.99. My prayers have been answered.

Available on Chewy with RAVE reviews


Guess what?
Tom can eat out of this, too. It’s unreal:

He walks up on a girl eating, shoulder to shoulder, moves her out of the way, HOLDS THE FLAP OPEN WITH HIS HEAD AS IT’S CLOSING, and stuffs his face.

What?

What?

You are the most adorable bane I have ever met.

To fix this problem, we put up a gate. We installed a SureFlap on the gate. The girls have to walk through the gate, which locks immediately, then walk over to their SureFeed and eat while the boys are the previous room.
However, we just moved to a new house where it’s impossible to install a gate on the entrance to the kitchen.

Alright alright alright. I should have listened to Stacy. I just didn’t have the room! Stacy has PetsWeekly.com, and the product she had posted about years ago was the MeowSpace.

MeowSpace website
For the life of me, up until now, I had no room for an enclosure. Now, I do. So here I am, five years later, emailing the team at MeowSpace, because I already have a SureFlap door. Can they pre-cut the enclosure to my door? YES THEY CAN.

My original SureFlap. The one that keeps the Tom out.

Putting the house together after the move. Tucked it by the entertainment center.

Again, I cannot stress that this is not a solution for all cats. The original is kind of a tight squeeze. Princess Yue Pants doesn’t always pull her tail all the way, but if Tommy touches it, she pulls it right in and the SureFlap locks immediately. My girls are both around 10 lbs, so I can’t complain. Any larger, and I would say it’s too big for my lifestyle.

Amalie and Princess Yue Pants

But, if you have 13 lbs bubs that need to use the system, they have one for that too.
The dimensions are 38″L x 22″W x 20″H Custom Oversized Enclosure, where the original is 32.00 x 18.00 x 17.00 in.
We do keep our 5 lb pet scale on top of the enclosure or else Tommy will open the lid and climb inside.