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Elevated Dog Bowls — Advantages + Top 6 Best Elevated Dog Bowls

Breeding Business is passionate about all sorts of domesticated pets. They have written dozens of articles across the web.
Published on
Monday 17 June 2019
Last updated on
Tuesday 9 May 2023
best elevated dog bowls to avoid bloat and neck strain
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Elevated dog bowls allow bigger and taller dogs to have their bodies in the most suitable position while eating or drinking. Regular dog bowls which are not raised, are too low for larger dogs to properly eat and drink.

Because normal bowls are unadapted for the morphology of these medium-to-giant dogs, their necks are getting unnecessary pressure each time to stoop. Although this is totally fine for a few weeks here and there, over the years, it may cause structural problems.

Make your dog a favor and get him the best elevated food bowl along with a raised water bowl. If you feel like spending a little more money (around the $20 mark), you may also get an elevated double bowl set for dogs. The good news is that you have to buy bowls for your dogs regardless, so just buy the ones adapted to your dog’s size and physique. Trust me, you’ll save on some huge vet bills!

For the lazy readers, here are the top 6 best elevated dog bowls with direct links going to their Amazon page:

  1. PetFusion Innovative SinglePod Magnetic
  2. IRIS Airtight Elevated Storage Feeder
  3. Pawfect Pets Premium Elevated Dog Feeder
  4. OurPets Elevated Dog Feeding Station
  5. PetFusion Elevated Pet Feeder
  6. Neater Feeder Express Raised Pet Dish

They range from very cheap to premium products so there is something for every single reader of Breeding Business.

Advantages of Elevated Dog Bowls

For larger dogs, elevated dog bowls put very little strain on the neck and joints which can help promote good posture and relieve muscle pains. Additionally, raised dog bowls can be a lot easier to access for dogs with arthritis.

The posture taken by the dog using a properly-sized elevated bowl makes it easier for food and water to travel from the mouth to the stomach. However, make sure your dog is not eating too fast, otherwise, it could lead to bloating. Finally, if your dog tends to play with its own water, a raised water bowl prevents a lot of mess by making it harder to play with.

Overall, raised feeders are generally good investments and make everything a little easier for you and your pup. However, you have to be careful of the following points when buying the best elevated dog bowls for your pet:

  • height — you cannot get this one wrong, it has to be high enough to avoid your dog’s head from stooping too low
  • materials — silicone, high-duty plastics, stainless steel, and glass, are the preferred materials for durability and hygiene
  • steadiness — make sure the elevated feeding station is not going to be easily tilted and knocked over
  • design — obviously, you do want to buy raised bowls that look good and match your interior!

Because elevated dog bowls are a simple dog supply, a lot of Chinese imports and bad products can be found. This is why we only recommend the below raised dog food and water bowls.

raised dog bowls promote good posture
Elevated dog bowls promote good posture by putting less strain on the neck and joints of the dog.

6 Best Elevated Dog Bowls

After weeks of studying elevated dog bowl reviews and feedbacks, after some for ourselves, we have come up with a shortlist of the absolute best raised dog bowls available to buy currently.

1. PetFusion SinglePod Magnetic Dog Feeder

Modulable, eye-catching, functional and practical. Just a few adjectives to qualify these best elevated dog bowls; perfect for both water and food. Beyond its beautifully modern design, each unit is comprised of a stainless bowl, an acrylic glass frame, and magnets. These Earth magnets allow you to put together several units to make it your very own bespoke dog raised feeding station.

PetFusion offers these unique raised bowls in two sizes: short (8x8x4″) and tall (11x11x9″) and you can buy them individually or in sets of two at a discounted price. Thanks to the stainless steel bowls, these PetFusion feeding stations accept water, wet food, canned food, but also dry dog food. The whole unit is extremely easy to clean with a sponge and some regular dish soap.

Thanks to the space depth of the bowls and the area covered by the feeding station glass stand, your dog(s) should not really make a big mess. Most of it will fall back into the bowl itself, or on the glass frame. If you have the budget, it’s a no brainer! It’s an overall winner but it does indeed cost a little more than more regular raised dog bowls out there.

2. IRIS Airtight Elevated Storage Feeder

A few months ago, we reviewed and listed the best dog food containers; they are required for all dog owners in order to keep kibble fresh for longer. Now, instead of having a container plus a dog feeding station, IRIS came up with this 2-in-1 product: the IRIS Airtight Elevated Storage Feeder. What is it? Well, it boasts two stainless steel dog bowls combined with a dog food container holding up to 64 cups of dry kibble for the large size and 46 cups for the smaller model.

A well thought out dog feeding station with storage with a practical design offering plenty of advantages from a dog owner’s standpoint. First, it is very convenient to store your dog’s kibble at the same spot where he/she eats and drinks. Secondly, the removable metallic bowls are super easy to clean while the PVC base acting as a food container can be wiped clean in seconds. Lastly, thanks to its Mallette-style design and the weight it has thanks to the food it stores, no dog should ever be able to tilt or knock it over.

IRIS priced its airtight storage feeder very smartly. It’s not expensive yet it’s not a cheap product either. Definitely pricier than your regular bowl but it also has several practical uses, and it’s built to last you forever. Definitely recommended, but you can build it yourself if you are a talented woodworker, ha!

3. Pawfect Premium Elevated Dog Bowl

Let’s go away from peculiar raised dog bowls and let’s refocus on the more regular feeding stations. Pawfect Pets has designed a very beautiful elevated feeding station for dogs that only fulfills that single purpose: offering both an elevated food and water bowl at a height that will reduce the strain on the spinal cord and neck of larger dogs. No bells and whistles: just a clean minimal design with stunning curves. It’s a stunning bamboo feeding station that looks incredibly fancy yet is very functional.

Bamboo is no ordinary wood: it has incredible water-resistant properties that make this station ready for any mess any dog could create. The stainless steel bowls are very much the norm these days thanks to their antibacterial and antifungal attributes. Under the feeding station, you will find non-skid rubber pads to make sure it doesn’t move around. Finally, the design itself has been engineered to prevent large dogs from knocking it over.

In all honesty, I am not surprised at all why the Pawfect Pets Premium Elevated Dog Feeder managed to get hundreds of very positive feedbacks in such a short amount of time. It’s rare to see an unknown brand produce such a reliable product.

4. OurPets Raised Dog Feeding Station

Coming in four different heights of 4 in, 8 in, 12 in, and 16 inches, these elevated dog bowls are extremely practical. Such a wide range of incremental heights allows dog owners to pick the most adequate size for their particular dog. Most raised food bowls are generally available in short and tall versions, without much choice besides these two. OurPets is here to provide a variety of heights while also selling a very well designed product.

At first glance, it looks like an average raised feeding station for dogs: it’s black, it has a simple design, and at the time of writing, it doesn’t have much of a description on e-commerce websites. However, read the feedbacks and you grasp the main point: it’s actually a sleek, non-slippery, easy-to-clean feeding station for dogs of all sizes.

The stand is made of durable plastic so you can wipe it clean every day to make sure bacterias do not grow, and bowls are made of (you guessed it…) stainless steel. The curves of each one of these four legs make it very stable and sturdy on the floor: I’ve witnessed agitated Great Danes eating off it without making it move whatsoever. Definitely worth the price tag!

5. PetFusion Elevated Pet Feeder

Some of the best raised pet bowls are made by PetFusion, they have a few ranking quite high in the bestselling lists. Their products last for a long time and reviews are positive and come by the hundreds (over 700 for this particular model.)

Built using high-grade pine from New Zealand, this discreet-looking raised food bowl received three layers of coating for more durability and strong water resistance. The short model reaches 4″ of height, the tall model goes 10″ high. Although this particular model doesn’t offer any unique perks or special features, it’s luxurious look will drive its price up to near $60.

Customers love it because it is made of precious materials, lasts for a very long time, and it most definitely going to withstand the biggest dogs out there thanks to its wide side panels preventing it from any knock over movements.

6. Neater Feeder Express Raised Pet Dish

Cheap but does the job! This three-legged adjustable elevated dog bowl is not meant to resist giant dogs but it should do just fine with big calm dogs. Now, there is a perk that no other elevated dog bowl reviewed has: it embeds a slow feeder. If you aren’t aware, slow feeders are dog bowls specifically designed to get dogs to slowly eat their kibble, preventing them from the usual gorging. This elevated slow feed dog bowl fights bloat and helps prevent obesity in dogs with too much appetite.

Usable as a flat food bowl, you can extend it upwards to two more different levels (i.e. medium at 6 inches, and tall at 10 inches.) Coming in white or pink, this Outward Hound slow feeder has a non-skid base and a solid PVC frame that is quick to wipe clean. The bowl itself has ridges and valleys which are the main actors in slowing down your dog’s meal. For the conscious dog owners, the removable bowl is free of Phthalate, PVC, and BPA.

The main drawback of this single elevated dog bowl is that it is not good for water: it is simply not deep enough. Meaning, you can definitely buy this model for your dog’s kibble but you would need another bowl for the water. The good news, though, is that the Neater Feeder Express Raised Pet Dish is rather cheap, only costing a fraction of the other raised bowls here. This product is extremely well-reviewed on all e-commerce websites.

Dog Raised Bowls – Q&A

Picking the best dog elevated bowl is subject to a few questions dog owners have on their minds. We’re happy to be able to go back to some old email conversation, scour the web, and answer your most frequently asked questions.

Feel free to comment on the article’s footer commenting section if you have any question you want an answer to.

How high should a dog’s food bowl be?

Raised dog bowls, both for food and water, should be high enough so your dog’s neck and shoulder blades remain straight. They should require very little or no stooping at all. Indeed, elevated bowls allow dogs to eat at a level that promotes ease of getting the food from the bowl, to the mouth, and into the digestive system. All of that without fighting gravity.

A head down to the floor, like most dog owners still do, requires food to travel up the digestive tract versus down it which is counter-intuitive and requires a lot more conscious effort from the dog while eating. And we know how incredibly fast dogs like to swallow their food. Therefore, a regular floor bowl generally causes a huge amount of strain on the dog’s neck and esophagus.

What is bloat in dogs?

Bloat in dogs, also known as canine bloat or Gastric Dilatation-Volvulus, is a potentially life-threatening condition of the digestive system that occurs when the dog’s stomach fills up with air, fluids, foods, and digestive gases. Often associated with large portions of food ingested rapidly, it provokes the rapid accumulation of digestive gases in the dog’s stomach, getting the dog’s stomach bigger. Such a large size consequently puts pressure on surrounding organs like the heart and lungs, compromising the blood supply to these organs, as well as their normal functions.

In most cases, moderate canine bloat in healthy dogs is lasting a couple of minutes after the meal, but the situation can be aggravated and lethal when a dog bloating is also the victim of its stomach twisting and rotating on its own axis; this is called volvulus, or torsion. The torsion is not insignificant since it can twist from anywhere around 90 to 360 degrees, the latter being a complete and deadly flip of the stomach.

Is bloat dangerous in dogs?

Canine bloat can occur daily without consequences however stomach torsions can become extremely dangerous (even lethal) and often come as a consequence of excessive bloat in the dog’s digestive tract. Therefore, it is very important to treat any bloating in your dog and contact your vet for a specific diagnosis and treatment.

In most scenarios, bloated dogs will have to be treated because a stomach that expends too much is putting too strong pressure on nearby organs. In a few more serious cases, emergency surgery will have to replace a twisted stomach back in its normal position.

All of that can be prevented by speaking to your vet about initial signs of bloating and taking action earlier on. Your vet may perform an x-ray to figure out how advanced the bloat or twist is at, starting the right course of actions from then onwards (drugs, anti-gas medication or surgery.)

What breeds of dogs are prone to bloat?

Dogs able to eat large meals very quickly are those who are the most prone to canine bloating; these include deep-chested dog breeds such as Great Danes and Standard Poodles, but more generally medium to giant dog breeds.

The actual causes believed to cause bloating in dogs have not yet been fully understood by scientists and veterinarians. Some studies have shown that bloating could even be caused by feeding your dog off a raised food bowl, while others stated stress, genetics and a string of very common problems as main causes for gastric dilatation-volvulus in dogs.

Top Raised Dog Bowls – Guide and Reviews
Top Raised Dog Bowls – Guide and Reviews

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