My cat Mabel finishes a bowl of wet food in under a minute and then spends the next two hours yelling at me about it. She is not hungry. She is bored. The two look identical from the outside, which is how I ended up spending a month testing the Catit Senses 2.0 Digger — a slow feeder designed to make a cat work for her meal using the one tool cats actually enjoy using: their paws.
What the Digger actually is
It is a flat green plastic base with nine rubber-lined tubes sticking up out of it. You pour kibble or drop wet food into the tubes. The tubes are narrow enough that the cat cannot get her face in, which forces her to fish the food out with a paw. That is the entire product, and the entire point.
The "Senses 2.0" part means it is modular — you can buy other Catit Senses additions (a circuit track, a grass planter, a massage center) and snap them together. I did not bother with the rest. The Digger alone is the piece that actually does something at mealtime.
The pawing feeder I used for a month
The Catit Senses 2.0 Digger turns a 60-second meal into a 5-minute puzzle by making a cat reach into narrow tubes with her paw. It is the rare slow feeder that plays to a cat's instincts instead of fighting them.
See the Catit Digger on Amazon →Why pawing matters for cats
Most slow feeders are designed for dogs and ported to cats badly. A dog slow feeder uses ridges and mazes that force the dog to chase food with his tongue. A cat does not want to chase food with her tongue — she wants to bat at things with her paws, which is the behavior that makes a cat a cat. The Digger leans into that. Mabel figured out the tubes in about thirty seconds, and the first week she was so into pawing her food out that she would refuse a normal bowl if I offered one.
The other thing pawing does is slow the meal down without frustrating the cat. A cat who is frustrated stops eating. A cat who is engaged keeps going. The difference is whether the feeder feels like a problem to solve or a wall to bang against. The Digger, for most cats, feels like a problem to solve.
What it does well
The mealtime stretch is real. Before the Digger, Mabel ate a quarter cup of kibble in about fifty seconds. With the Digger, the same amount takes four to six minutes. That is a meaningful slowdown for a cat — fast eating in cats is linked to regurgitation, and Mabel's post-meal barfing dropped from once or twice a week to maybe once a month.
The rubber tube liners are the smartest detail. They are removable for cleaning, which matters because wet food gets gross in a hurry and a feeder you cannot take apart is a feeder you will not use. I pull the liners out and wash them in the sink every few days.
The base is heavy enough that the cat does not flip it. Cats will flip light feeders. The Digger stays put.
What it does badly
The tube depth is uneven. Three of the nine tubes are noticeably deeper than the others, and the deep ones are hard for a small or senior cat to reach. Mabel is a 9-pound adult and she manages, but a kitten or a 15-year-old arthritic cat would struggle with the deep tubes. I ended up only filling the six shallow ones.
It is loud. A cat pawing hard plastic tubes makes a tapping sound that carries. If your cat eats at 5 AM and you sleep lightly, the Digger will wake you. This is not a flaw in the product exactly, but it is a real cost.
The kibble has to be small. Mabel eats a small-breed kibble and it works. A friend tried it with her cat's large-dental-kibble diet and the kibble jammed in the tubes. If you feed large kibble, the Digger will not work for you.
Who it is for
It is for a healthy adult cat who eats too fast, gets bored, or needs more mental work in a small space. It is not for kittens (tube depth), not for senior cats with arthritis (tube depth again), and not for cats on large kibble (jamming).
If your cat is a fast eater but small or senior, a flat lick mat is the safer call — no reaching, no pawing strain. The LickiMat Slomo Cat is the one I would reach for if Mabel were older or smaller.
If the Digger is too deep for your cat
For a small, senior, or arthritic cat, a whisker-friendly lick mat spreads the meal out flat so there is no reaching. The LickiMat Slomo Cat is built specifically for cat mouths and whiskers.
See the LickiMat Slomo Cat on Amazon →How to introduce it
Do not switch cold. The first meal, put a few pieces of kibble in the shallow tubes and the rest in the normal bowl next to it. Let the cat discover the tubes on her own — do not shove her face at them. Most cats figure out the pawing within a meal or two because pawing is already a thing they do. By the third meal, drop the bowl and use the Digger alone.
If your cat refuses to engage after three meals, she is telling you the Digger is not her thing. Stop pushing and try a lick mat or a shallow puzzle like the Catstages Buggin' Out instead.
The honest answer after a month
The Catit Digger is the slow feeder that actually worked for my cat, and the reason it worked is that it was designed for a cat and not a dog. The pawing motion is the whole product, and it is the right motion for a cat. The flaws — uneven tube depth, noise, kibble size limits — are real but manageable if your cat is a healthy adult on small kibble. For a kitten, a senior, or a large-kibble cat, skip it and go flat.
Mabel still yells at me after meals sometimes. But she yells less, she eats slower, and she stopped barfing on the rug. For a $15 piece of plastic that plays to her instincts, that is a fair trade.
