You can purchase these fairly inexpensively at just about any pet and home store. The one I purchased had a french name.

I believe this warrants a warning. See below:

In November of 2009 One of our puppies knocked it over and promptly got her head stuck inside the opening. And I mean *STUCK*

Well here we are, worried and not quite sure how to rescue her. We had to go about it very carefully.

This does not look like much in pictures, but the dish was quite a lot heavier than her head.

The puppies were only 7 weeks old, and very fragile, had she stayed stuck and struggling for very long at the very least her neck and possibly spinal cord would have been damaged, causing paralysis if not worse.

It was impossible to pull off the way it went on, and we were (obviously) reluctant to try and cut it off with anything. I tried pushing ever so gently on the top of her head but that didn't work and only made her squeak, upset at me.

The only option at the time seemed to be taking her to the vet and see if they could get it off.

*unimpressed*

Thankfully all ended well and we were able to get her out eventually, with no damage done to her cute little neck, although I cannot say the same for her mood at the time.

As you can see from her expression she was NOT impressed with her little adventure.

I want to make it clear, I am not telling anyone not to purchase a self watering dish, just letting you know so you can make an educated decision.

If I had known I never would have allowed it in my nursery.

This case could have easily ended tragically had we not been there immediately, not to mention that  if she had gone in the opposite direction she would have drowned and we never would have had the luxury of trying to figure out how to get her out in the first place.

My opinion now is that it is much easier to wash a shallow saucer clean, no matter how many times it takes through the day, than to risk having this happen again.