outside the labs

Best Automatic Dog Feeders

CR evaluated five of them, including two from Petlibro. Some made mealtime more complicated.

By Lisa Fogarty
Home & Trends Writer

Updated February 10, 2025

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Dog with three automatic pet feeders — Blake helped us evaluate automatic pet feeders from companies like Petlibro and Patpet.

There may be times when you have to leave your furry friend home alone to go to work or school or to run errands. Your pooch still needs to eat, and leaving dog food out before you leave isn’t a great solution unless your dog has great impulse control. And if so, they must not be labradoodles.

In this article

Automatic Pet Feeders: Easiest to Use Fanciest One That Takes Video For Dogs With Impulse Control
How We Evaluated These Automatic Feeders

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Lisa Fogarty

Lisa Fogarty is a senior multimedia content creator at Consumer Reports. She studied journalism at Columbia University and has written numerous health, parenting, fitness, and wellness articles for The New York Times, Psychology Today, Vogue, and NPR. Lisa is passionate about mental health and is a co-creator of The Hunger Trap Podcast, which focuses on eating disorders. In her spare time she surfs, plays the guitar, and kickboxes. Follow her on X: @lisacfogarty