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.