Neat squishy foldable dog water/food bowl
When I was a kid and our family did a lot of camping and long road trips, and I remember we had this great little packet that contained hard plastic collapsible drinking cups though they were really small, and lately I've been wondering if there was some kind of similar device for dogs that was big enough to use as a water or food bowl for traveling. I never really needed to worry about water for Yoshi while on our walks since normally we get enough rain to make puddles he can drink out of along the way. But this spring and summer were just dry as a bone (and still is), and it sucked that I had to keep cutting his walks short because he needed to get home and have a drink of water.
So I got the idea of getting him a mesh doggie reflector vest that he could even wear in the summer heat and making my own little pouches to sew onto the sides that were just big enough to hold a couple of bottles of water (I sure would like to have a little water on our long walks, too, but it mostly would be for him. Then of course the question came up of how he'd be able to drink it, so I went searching online for collapsible dog bowls. There's quite a lot, but they mostly seem to be made of nylon cloth that wouldn't be so good for water since some would leak through the material and you'd have a damp fabric bowl to put away.
I went back to the Leerburg site since they seem to have all kinds of obscure products for dogs, and found this really cool squishy and foldable dog bowl that holds it's original bowl shape until you fold or ball it up and stuff it in a pocket. It comes in a lot of different sizes and colors, is dishwasher and microwave safe and made out of a safe silicone material. This is pretty much exactly what I was hoping to find though I was thinking it would have to be one of the cloth type ones since I never envisioned anything like this, and I was bit leary of the cloth ones wondering how to wash it since I'd want to use it daily for our long tramps all around the neighborhood.
If you go on a long car trip or long walks or hikes with your dog or if your dog needs to stay in a motel with you for an overnight, etc. it's a pretty nifty thing to have on hand that you can just wipe dry and stuff it back in a pocket, and it's cheap to boot.
There's also a video here that shows how small it balls or folds up and then just pops open into the bowl shape ready to use. It's funny at the end, too, since Ed shows how you can also use it as an emergency rain hat for yourself. And to be honest, though it would look kooky it's really not such a bad idea... I've gotten unexpectedly caught in the rain while out with the dog many many times since the weatherman always like to lie to me, and it sucks getting your head wet. I can put up with getting rained on everywhere else, but rain on my head really bugs me.
http://leerburg.com/1309.htm
