I am an evil person. I bought a robot to feed our cat.

[NNadir]

We have to leave town for 5 days to set up my son at an internship far away.

The only person in our neighborhood who we felt comfortable to feed the cat was out of town when we went to call him.

So we went looking for a robot. We asked at a local dog and cat accessories store if they sold cat feeding robots and the owner sneered at us and said, "we would never sell them."

A nice lady overheard us, and came up to us outside to say she had a cat feeding robot, but her cat was too neurotic to use it, and she offered to sell it to us.

So we bought it. We're testing it. It allowed us to record our voices, and I recorded my voice insulting the cat, but because of what Pavlov discovered, she thinks this insult means she is either about to be petted or fed, sometimes both.

It feeds the cat quite well, and more systematically than we do, since we're inclined to let the cat become obese since we give in to cat nagging. The robot couldn't care less what the cat thinks.

The cat eats from it, albeit grudgingly.

The kid who was out of town, came back and we hired him to come in and pet the cat, but basically his job otherwise has been automated away by a robot.

I am a bad person.

Not only that, but I just found out that my kid, the one we're driving to the internship, has programmed a computer in an AI application to look for cracks in materials, putting microscopists out of work.

We're a family of bad people.

[JoeOtterbein]

1. My cat overeats and then eats the other 2 cat's food.

Would something like what you have help him to lose weight?

[Dem2theMax]

9. Nope. As someone who helps take care of other people's cats,

and in feeding multiple cats, I can tell you that as long as a cat can get near someone else's food bowl, they are going to eat that food.

An obese cat is a cat that is probably going to die long before it should.

I had one friend who let her cat get to about 30 lb, even though the vet and I both tried and tried to get her to stop overfeeding this cat. She had to put the cat down at 11 years of age, due to the obesity and all of the problems that came with it. This woman will forever grieve the loss of this cat, but she killed it by overfeeding it.

I have one friend who uses an automatic cat feeding tray, but she only uses it to put a few pieces of dry food in as a treat. I have known her so long that she is now on her second cat, the first one having passed away. That first cat would sit in front of that automatic feeder for hours, just waiting for it to turn so she could have her treats.

Animals are just like people. Some overeat, some don't. And when it comes to the animals, it is up to us humans to make sure their diets are healthy.

The only way to make sure a cat is not overeating, especially when you have multiple cats, is to feed them in separate areas, and only give them a certain amount of time to eat before the food bowls are picked up and washed out.

It's a pain in the rear end to have to do that, it does take more time, but if you want a healthy pet, it's what you have to do. It's part of being a responsible mom or dad to your furry family members.

[Skittles]

12. five days is too long, someone needs to at least check on a pet

[Dem2theMax]

13. I've had people tell me that I only needed to stop by once a day.

And I insist on twice a day for cats. You never know what they can get into. Besides that, they have to have some loves!

[NNadir]

15. Well, we did hire a kid to come in and pet her. He's actually going to be...

...out of town for one of the days, however, and the cat will have to get love from the robot.

I worried that the robot would only be able to give the cat love in Chinese, which I don't think she understands, but it did record our English quite well.

[Skittles]

16. that sounds good

[Skittles]

17. when I petsit I do the twice daily thing

in the morning I do the food and litter, in the afternoon, it's more social

[Dem2theMax]

18. The love part is the best part!

No matter how upset I am about what that idiot in the White House is doing, all I have to do is pet a cat or a dog and I calm down. Amazing how those four-footed creatures can do those things to us. And two-footed. I am very partial to birds.

[Skittles]

22. I do get a kick out of pet-sitting

it just feels therapeutic

[Dem2theMax]

25. How true.

I consider it free therapy. You cannot lose with a doggy or a cat who is happy to see you.

[samnsara]

30. we had to evacuate our house for several days because the bridge to our drive way was washing out..

..the house is way up on a hill so very safe. We hiked out with our 10 yr old golden retriever and left the 5 cats with pounds of dry cat food, clean litter boxes and gallons of water..even tho there was tons of water just down from our house. They had a cat door to go in and out. When we hiked back in a few days later to check on them and get a new change of clothes, they were all on the sofa sleeping. They looked at us, yawned and went back to sleep. They didnt even know we were gone.

[Fla Dem]

29. My cat's not social. She's a sweetie, but humans aren't her thing. So when I'm away,

we just have someone come in daily to refill her food dish (dry food only kitty) and clean her litter box. She runs and hides whenever anyone, except family, comes into the house.

[htuttle]

2. Oh, my. What brand is the robot?

That sounds really cool.

We have a similar lack of trustworthy people to take care of our cats when we're away, so we haven't been able to get away for a long time.

[NNadir]

5. It's this one:

Prices range for the same robot from $40 to $170 with two different brand names.

The lady she thought she paid $35, but we gave her $40, since Amazon was unable to guarantee we'd get in time.

[ProudLib72]

14. Looks like it is projecting a holographic image of cat food

Now that's the way to get your cat to loose weight.


And that WOULD be evil.

[nocoincidences]

3. Maybe you are bad people....

but as someone who is owned by multiple cats (and a dog) and has been a computer addict for decades...

I understand.

Leave town in peace.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Does Mr. Machine coo "Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty"?

[NNadir]

6. My wife's voice, recorded, says something like that.

My voice recorded insults the basic integrity of cats in general, but, as I said, she misinterprets these remarks, by habit, to mean she's about to be petted, and usually she's right.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Love it!

[Sneederbunk]

7. A robot cat would eat less.

[NNadir]

8. And probably could be programmed to not claw the furniture to pieces. n/t.

[First Speaker]

11. It's better than buying a cat to feed your robot...

[samnsara]

19. our cats didnt care if we were there or not as long as there was food...

...we left about 10 pounds of food in tubs, gallons of water and the cat door was always available. I would worry if the robot malfunctioned, the cat wouldn't get fed...and inevitably one of them would have peed on the unit, contaminating it and the food.

[NNadir]

21. We did that right after we were forced to adopt her by subterfuge.

It was on the advice of my sister-in-law, who was the person who scammed us into the adoption by pointing out that after her divorce, her ex-husband insisted she take the cat despite the fact she had acquired a dog who eats cats, squirrels, rabbits, anything in that general size area. We took the cat "just until she could make other arrangements." It's been 4 years.

We left on that 3 day trip, to, um, visit my sister-in-law.

We left a ton of food around the house and left for three days. She ate everything, threw up in several places, and gained a huge amount of weight.

It took forever to get her back to size, and only via disciplining ourselves to endure cat whining.

She's only a little bit overweight now, and the robot, like I said, doesn't care what the cat wants.

She also has a gravity auto-feed water dispenser now, and seems to have adjusted to that well.

[samnsara]

20. install some foscam security cams..cheap and reliable..

..have the kid install them then you can check on kitty and even talk to him-her thru your phone app.

[UniteFightBack]

24. I agree I love these cameras while I'm away...I can even zoom in to check on the fish tank! nt

[UniteFightBack]

23. They have a bunch of them online, many different styles etc. I'm currently in the market for one

myself! I'm looking at the 5 meal feeder with accompanying ice packs. My cat needs frequent meals so this is perfect while at work and of course it will come in handy for time away.

But yeah to answer your question you're just bad people.

[NNadir]

27. This one works great, one bad person to another.

It works with batteries or off a wall socket.

[customerserviceguy]

26. Let us know

when your cat outsmarts the robot. My money's on the cat.

[NNadir]

28. She's pretty smart for a person with a brain the size of a walnut.

[customerserviceguy]

31. Hey

that's bigger than the current president!

[NNadir]

32. Yes, but while I have expressed a willingness to offer insults to the cat, let's not go too far.

Despite insulting her in a joking fashion, she is pretty smart, and despite a habit of destroying my furniture, otherwise she's rather lovable.

Comparing her to the creature living in the White House, who hardly seems housebroken, and is interested in destroying far more than a love seat, but rather an entire country and, in fact, the entire world, is very insulting to the cat.