Have owned this fountain for about a year. At first, like other positive reviews have noted, found that our cats really liked it. Bought some filters and figured that with filter changes, it might need a quick weekly rinse or so. Also assumed that stainless steel bowl meant it would be easy to clean.
Wrong on both counts. The filter sits below the water slide part, behind a plastic grate. Since there is no seal at any point, water is free to happily flow around the filter. This is essentially the same thing as dropping a filter in a bowl of water, letting it bob around randomly, and calling it "filtered water." Optimistic at best. Because the water is unfiltered, it collects and disperses hair and saliva through the entire flow of water. Additionally, the black plastic spout is formed of three pieces that snap together. To make that work, there are a great deal of channels, grooves and tabs that are very difficult to clean out completely, unless you have an old toothbrush, some powerful cleaner, and a spare hour or so. So when they say "the stainless steel bowl is easy to clean" they aren't wrong, but they aren't exactly straightforward about all of the other parts (which because they are plastic, also happen to react poorly with hard water). The pump, which actually was pretty stout, did have a hard time because of the gunk buildup and unfiltered hair. It also required cleaning presumably due to debris getting stuck in the impeller, resolved by whacking against the side of the sink and flushing with hot water. The length of time between required cleanings shrank as the fountain is impossible to truly and thoroughly clean without dunking the whole thing a heavy duty disinfectant, starting as two weeks, then a once-a-week complete dissasembly and careful thorough cleaning of the slide, upper spout, lower spout, grate, pump, and bowl. It was a losing battle and I gave up when that wasn't really enough anymore. As insult to injury, taking apart the thing so often led to breaking one of the tabs that secured the large black plastic assembly to the bowl, which meant lining up the pump with the spout became tricky, requiring several attempts to get right. Removing the stainless steel water slide many, many times also led to the black plastic tab securing this part to partially break, which meant the slide became loose. But that was the least of the trouble, really. In the off chance that you have a kid and they have a project for science class where they need to demonstrate bacterial growth in a favorable environment, I would recommend this product. In all other cases, I would not. I think pet fountains are pretty great, actually, but you should look for a fountain that has a filter that works well and has as few plastic parts as possible. This one needs a redesign.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2017 by Heather Montgomery
