So, I’ve had the Deluxe Fresh Flow by PetMate for a few months now and let me tell you it was a rough journey to get it to work.
When I first acquired the fountain…
…the AC plug didn’t work so I contacted PetMate to report the issue. Luckily, PetMate has a pretty good customer service team and sent me another AC plug… however, this plug also didn’t work. So… they sent me the following e-mail:
A new pump will be sent. This is our last effort as we do not know why the adapters are failing, especially since they are all coming from the same supplier.
Which is a pretty weird e-mail to be receiving when you have hard evidence that the product they sent was faulty… twice!
Luckily, the new AC adapter worked so I didn’t have to question what they meant by… “last effort.” With all of that aside.
Does it keep my water clean?
Yes, it does a pretty good job of that. I was first worried that the inside of the bowl would get dirty, especially because it has such an open space. The filters do a pretty awesome job at removing hair and small debris from the water (because… guess what? Kitties always seem to shed and it always goes into their water supply!) I clean this little guy about once a week.
Is it effective?
Yes, and no. A lot of pet parents aren’t super fond of filling their little one’s bowls often. This fountain needs to be filled every 3 days for us. (And that’s with 2 fountains and 3 water bowls spread around the house.) If this was Beau’s only source of water I would have to fill it much more (keeping in mind a lot of water probably gets evaporated.) Beau does love drinking from this fountain though. (I think it’s the fact that he has the option to either lick from the spout or lap from the bowl unit.) I would mostly recommend this fountain for pet parents who are worried that their little ones aren’t going to drink directly from plastic. This is one of the only fountains I found in my local pet store that has a basin for water which is why I wanted to try it out!
How loud is it? Does it scare kitties?
It’s pretty loud and by this I mean… It’s louder than our fish tanks and our other fountain. I understand that pumps need to make noise, but if there are a number of pumps that are much quieter, I would much rather use those. Now, a person who records music for a living, I always have to turn off this fountain while I can usually edit out the noises from the other ones. So for those of you who have little ones who are scared of noise (or avoid things that make humming noises), this isn’t the right fit. Beau wasn’t scared of this fountain though. He walked up to it within the first hour of it being placed and drank. He’s a curious kitty, so sometimes he’ll walk by it to check it out and remembers… “Maybe it’s time to drink!” A bit of a happy mistake for him!
Final Critique
Given the size of the basin, the noise the pump makes, the fact that 2/3 pieces of it were defective I give this guy a 2.5/5. Honestly, I wouldn’t really recommend it given my experiences with it. It’s clear my little one prefers the other fountain over this one and I have to be honest, I’m only keeping it because I have it. I believe the more water around the house, the more chances Beau is going to drink. If I had to rebuy this fountain, I wouldn’t. I find that extremely unfortunate, especially because I waited months before I could actually use this product. It’s a let down, but hey… maybe that’s why they created new versions! Hopefully those ones are much better.
So Pet Parents, have you ever tried this fountain? What was your experience with it? Have you ever had to deal with customer service before and did they send you a weird e-mail about “last efforts?” Lemme know in the comments below.
We used to have an older fountain, also plastic…and since Pipo was a water sports fan we had to stop using it…it WAS hard to keep clean ad the slime build up was revolting, even though the water that went into it was already from our R/O filter system. I would love to have a stainless steel one or a ceramic one…but they are too pricey for me right now…
I feel you! I actually haven’t had an issue with gunk just yet. And luckily Beau isn’t a water sports fan! But this is definitely not the favourite fountain :’)
Thanks for the honest review. It is frustrating when you start with a defective product!
Hey, no problem! And yeah it definitely is! But luckily I’m no stranger to the realm of customer service 😉
Sorry the fountain was not so good but we appreciate the honest & detailed review!
My boys prefer still water from bowls. But we keep one fountain, just because one of boys loves to play with it 🙂
Hahah! Which fountain do they like playing in? And yeah, Walker isn’t a fan of still water at all. When we first got him it was super hard to get him to drink (which is why we bought the initial fountain!)
Well that’s interesting. While customer service was accommodating it also seems like they weren’t going to hep you further if this fix didn’t work. Thanks for the review.
Yeah, it’s really odd, eh? I’m still super happy that they were so helpful, but obviously I’m going to share my experience of getting odd vibes off the e-mail!
Great review. I don’t buy plastic fountains because some of my cats get chin acne from plastic bowls.
Oi! That’s no fun. Do you know why exactly your little one is getting acne from plastic bowls? (Has to do research), Beau had acne once, but it cleared up very quickly. We actually couldn’t figure out the specific reason he got it in the first place sadly. But we’re glad he hasn’t gotten it back since!
We’re sorry to hear this fountain isn’t meeting your expectations. Y’know…we’re having a giveaway for a PetSafe Drinkwell 360 fountain and it’s pretty cool…and quiet. We hope you entered!
Unfortunately your contests are U.S. only 🙁 So we haven’t been able to enter since we’re in Canada!
We had a fountain (plastic), but the pump died very quickly. We’re back to our old good water bowl… Purrs
Oi, that sucks! I wish companies would send more durable pumps. We’ve had a catit fountain for 3 years and it’s still going! Grateful for that. I’m not sure how long this one is going to last though. Glad to hear that the good ol’ water bowls are doing well with you <3
Interesting review! We were gifted a plastic water fountain over 10 years ago, and the cats refused to use it. It was too loud. The Hubby didn’t like it, because cleaning it was a pain. Therefore, we’ve avoided buying another. Now, however, there are stainless steel fountains, and ceramic ones too. If you review any of those, that would be helpful! LOL!
I’d definitely be interested in doing a review for them. I haven’t actually seen a ceramic one yet, but I love using ceramic bowls for Beau (cause of how easy they are to clean.)