Drinkwell Big-Dog Pet Fountain
CUSTOMER REVIEW
Though this isn't a must have item by any means, we do have a big Golden Retriever (we actually own two Goldens) that has always preferred drinking from a stream of running water (like a faucet or the water pouring from a bottle, etc.) and we do spoil our dogs sometimes... So out of curiosity I ordered this thing. Well when it arrived, I disassembled it and washed everything and then re-assembled... I figured this would be good practice and allowed me to evaluate the design and fit. Filled it with water and turned it on... HUMMMMMM!!! ...LOUD!!! LOUD!!! LOUD!!! this thing hummed sooo loud it could be heard two rooms away and even faintly from another floor. It was Friday evening so I had the weekend to play around with the thing. Everything I tried did nothing to quiet the loud humming of the little aquarium pump motor. I figured this canNOT possibly be right... they've probably sold tens of thousands of these things by now and no way would they have been able to do that if they all sounded this loud. So first thing on Monday I called the seller, who immediately agreed with me that something was not right, it should be very quiet. I was given the phone number of the manufacturer's customer service. After a nice conversation in which they also agreed something was not right with my unit, they sent me out a new motor/impeller at no charge. It took a week and a day to get to me. After I installed the new motor/impellor... TADA!!! no more hum. This thing is very quiet... now all I hear anymore is the gentle trickling of the water stream, hooray! ...its actually a kinda relaxing sound. The moral of the story here is... its not suppose to be loud and if you have a unit that is, just complain and ask for a new motor/impeller.
Bottomline is this is a great product... excellent design and fit. And this Big Dog fountain really is big and holds a lot of water... enough for days without having to refill it. One trick to keeping it cleaner longer is we have a separate SS water bowl next to the food dishes at dinner time so they drink out of that bowl immediately following dinner, that way all the food/kibble junk falls into the stainless bowl which we pick up soon after dinner and dump out. This keeps the Big Dog fountain from fouling up and so we don't need to wash it very often... in fact, we only wash it once every couple of weeks.
I had to rate it at only 4 stars because of the original motor's noise... and thus all totaled, it did take more than a week to get it working properly as it should have... and that inconvenience alone has got to cost it a star rating.