My cats aren't particularly smart, but they are particularly food driven. Having this keeps the 5am I'm hungry yowls away. I've had it for over a year now and it still works. I don't use it for wet food because I tried that once and the food went bad. I could have divided it into 4, but that would have defeated the whole purpose of having an automatic feeder. Now the cats have been re-trained to listen to the motor of this thing, they pretty much don't bother me in the morning. (I also don't allow them in the bedroom so that helps too) Also, I can go on vacation for a week and have someone check on them once or twice instead of every day.