I have 2 cats and one is getting chubby, plus I'm tired of always feeding them regularly.  I needed this for when I was out of town anyway. This is great for feeding them a certain amount of food without overfeeding them. I don't plan on using it for canned food with the ratings I saw on the site. Besides, it's not vacuum packed to keep the canned food from spoiling and the ice packs are kind of cheap on the bottom---a gel that lasts longer than frozen water in them would work better and the manufacturer should have thought of that.