FAQ

The following are common characteristics of PortionPro owners, if any of these apply to you or your pet, the Portion Pro Rx might be the right fit for you!

• You own a cat or dog
• There are multiple pets in the household 
• Pet is on therapeutic diet
• Overweight pets
• Pets steal food from one another 
• Accidental overfeeding or underfeeding 
• Confusing pet feeding schedule with other people in household 
• Work long or inconsistent work hours
• Pets annoy you for food early in the morning
• Cats throwing up after eating 

While the PortionPro Rx seems expensive, we find that the benefits far outweigh the costs. Not only can the feeder help avoid stress at mealtime in your life but by feeding your pets appropriately they will be healthier which saves on future vet visits and treatments for preventable diseases.

Since the PortionPro Rx is designed to only feed one pet, for proper portion and access control we recommend each cat and/or dog in the house be given its own feeder and collar tag. However, depending on the specific dietary and lifestyle restrictions for certain pets, less feeders can be purchased. 

The PortionPro Rx is ideally meant to portion out food for one pet in the home. The only instances we would condone assigning multiple pets to the same feeder would be a case where you have multiple animals at a healthy weight that you can trust to self-regulate (almost all the time this would only apply to cats as dogs typically cannot share the same food bowl without guarding and aggressive behaviors). When programming the feeder you would set the total daily amount for the total amount of all pets being fed on that feeder and assign each of their tags as approved with the feeder. This would work well if there is a third pet in the home who is overweight, on a therapeutic diet, or who steals food and needs to be separated from the pets on the feeder.

To properly control access to feeders within the home each pet will need to wear a PortionPro Rx tag. Depending how many feeders you’re purchasing and how many pets will determine how many additional tags you will need. For example, if you are buying 2 feeders but have 4 pets you will need to purchase 2 additional tags as the PortionPro Rx comes stock with 1 tag.
Each tag sends out a unique signal that can communicate with any feeder. So whether you have 1 or 100 feeders in your home, each pet only needs one tag.

The PortionPro Rx is designed to use minimal amounts of energy and on average costs less than $1.25 PER YEAR to operate.

The PortionPro Rx controls portions by distributing equal amounts of food at preset times in preset amounts by volume based on how you program the feeder. The daily totals vary from ½ cup all the way up to 6 cups. From ½ cup up until 3 cups the amount changes in 1/8 cup increments. From 3 cups to 6 cups the amount changes in ¼ cup increments. For cats you can program either 2, 4, or 6 meals per day; where 2 and 4 are custom times you set and 6 meals is automatically divided up over a 24 hour period (which is most natural and healthy for cats). Dogs are offered either 2 or 3 meals per day and both of those options are completely customizable times. Cats naturally eat frequent small meals a day, the PortionProRx feeder has the ability to feed 6 small a day which healthier for cats. Free feeding cats is unhealthy for cats.

In order to properly portion food to your pet we need to set a predetermined amount per day that they are allowed to eat. Ideally, for their best health, cats will be fed frequent small meals throughout the day. If we allowed pets to eat whenever they want then pets without any self control would eat their daily amount of food in one sitting. By splitting the meal amount into several timed meals we ensure pets have nourishment throughout the day.

The PortionPro Rx is designed to feed a large variety of kibble sizes and shapes, but not semi moist kibble. We do recommend kibble that is generally a uniform size, non-irregular shapes, and 5/8th of an inch or less in diameter. Kibble outside of these criteria may still feed but will be more likely to have jamming and inaccurate meal amounts.

While the PortionPro Rx only automatically feeds dry kibble pet parents can manually supplement the dry food with wet/moist foods. By opening the food bowl door, the pet parent can drop a portion of wet food directly into the food bowl. This allows access to the wet food to be restricted to only the pet assigned to this PortionPro Rx.

While we have successfully tested the PortionPro Rx with dogs as large as a Mastiff our recommendations are for the feeder to be used with cats and dogs up to 65 pounds. Larger dogs tend to be fed larger kibble sizes which can result in poor accuracy in feeding amounts.

While it is impossible to make a truly silent pet feeder, we have worked hard to develop a quiet feeder. The loudest part of the feeder is the door opening which will only occur a few times per day and runs at approximately 55 decibels (equivalent to the sound of your refrigerator running). So far in the homes the PortionPro Rx has been used there has been minimal issues with pets and the noise of the feeder. If your pet does have issues with the noise of the door we offer solutions such as running the feeder in open mode to reduce the amount of times the door needs to move. Other tips are available in our acclimation guide that comes along with every feeder.

The PortionPro Rx was built to be extremely resilient. We have thoroughly tested its durability and found that the average house pet would be no match in destroying it. If you’d like to see some of the testing we’ve done.

There are 2 places that a pet would be able to steal extra food from: the top of the food bin and the opening between the food bowl and food bin. The food bin lid is securely held in place by a latch that needs to be pinched to open and also doubles in securing the food bin to the base of the feeder. If a pet tries to go through the food bowl to steal extra kibble from the bin the feeder senses this and closes the door to prevent food stealing.

We do not recommend leaving any pet unattended for multiple days at a time. The PortionPro Rx is not a substitute for a pet owner, and we would still suggest you have a friend or trusted neighbor stop by daily to check on your pet while you’re on vacation in case of an unexpected power outage or other unforeseen issue.

We have designed the PortionPro Rx to be as simple as possible to setup and program. We find it to be about as difficult to program as an alarm clock or microwave using our simple user interface. By following the steps in our Quick Start Guide or watching our set up video on YouTube setting up the feeder is an easy process that should take no more than a few minutes.

The food bin of the PortionPro Rx holds up to 32 cups of food.

No. The tag for the PortionPro Rx uses a frequency for RF that is different from other RF signals typically used in the house. We specifically designed the patented RF system to avoid interference.

Yes, the tags communicate with various feeders letting them know which pets can and cannot access the food within them. Any pets that are not wearing a tag can access and steal food from feeders they are not assigned to. 

In some instances, you could run a feeder without a collar on a pet. This only works if they are using the only PortionPro Rx in the home or if the pet in question isn’t a threat of food stealing. You would program the feeder as normal, putting it into open mode, and when pairing a tag, you will make the tag unapproved by pressing the minus button during tag pairing (Instructions for this are in the User Manual as well as demonstrated in a video on our YouTube channel). Then simply place the tag more than 3 feet from the feeder or attach it to the collar of another pet in the home.

No. At this time the PortionPro Rx does not have any features allowing for Wi-Fi connectivity or functioning through an app on a cell phone.

The PortionPro Rx was developed in the USA by a team with over 150 years of combined product development experience. For 2 years we attempted to work with U.S. manufacturers before realizing that in order to keep the price reasonable we would need to look elsewhere. We teamed up with a world class Chinese manufacturer that produces items for some of the biggest names in small appliances worldwide in order to bring you the highest quality product possible at a reasonable price.

Due to the range of the RF we recommend that feeders be placed at least 6 feet apart and ideally be separated by a wall or other structure to avoid interference when both pets are eating.

No. The PortionPro Rx operates off a standard wall outlet so in the case of a power outage no food will be delivered to the bowl. However, we do have an internal battery that stores the time and all settings so that when the power returns the feeder will continue to function as usual. If a meal or multiple meals are missed during the power outage the PortionPro Rx will display an alert code to notify you that your pet missed a meal.

The PortionPro Rx has many elements that were specifically engineered for the safety of pets in the home. The food door closes gently and backs off briefly when it senses an obstruction to be sure not to injure any paws that might be in the way. The door is made of interlocking pieces that prevent claws from being caught if a cat or dog tries scratching at it. Our food bowl is made of ceramic coated steel as a ceramic bowl is more hygienic and prevents chin acne on pets that can be caused by plastic bowls.

When run in closed mode the PortionPro Rx does a great job of keeping toddlers and small children from getting into and eating the dog/cat food. In addition, the safety features we have in place for your pets, specifically the door closing safety feature, will keep your children from being hurt if a feeder door does happen to close on their hand.

Yes. The RF system transmits in short bursts for a total transmission time of about 15 minutes per day. This ends up being the equivalent of 1.5 minutes of cell phone use per day.

The tag could be a choking hazard if swallowed by a pet due to its size. It is also powered by a lithium coin cell battery, so we recommend contacting your veterinarian if your pet does happen to ingest the tag.

Our feeder only works with our own RF tag. The embedded microchips work using passive RF which means they bounce a signal off and back to the source; this method has an extremely short range, often only an inch or two, and because of these pets are still able to steal food. Our tags send out active RF signals that are recognized by the feeder at a distance of approximately 2 feet. What this means is that the bowl door is closed before the food stealer even reaches the feeder; which in many cases can actually change behavior over time.

All parts of the PortionPro Rx that come in contact with pet’s food are made of food safe materials and easily removable for cleaning. Also compressed air cans can be used to remove small particles of food in the food bowl and food belt assembly receptacles. We recommend periodic cleaning to remove kibble debris and grease that are left behind. The pieces can be easily cleaned with some dish detergent, a sponge, and paper towels. We do not recommend any sort of dish washing cycles that involve heat as this can lead to warping of the food bin. For more complete instructions consult the back pages of our User Manual.

We have developed the PortionPro Rx to function as easily and carefree as possible. Occasionally you may get alert codes from the feeder that are displayed on the LCD screen of the feeder and indicated by a three-tone beeping. The codes on the underside of the lid will give you an understanding of what the alert is in reference to that you can further investigate in your User Manual.

No. The PortionPro Rx delivers timed portioned meals independent of the access door opening.

The uneaten food will remain accessible in the feeder bowl to that pet 24/7. Even if your pet doesn’t eat all the food by the time the next meal is scheduled, the food will still be delivered on time. 

The access operates in two modes Open and Closed Mode.

Closed Mode – The access remains closed unless the approved pet approached the feeder and will close if the unapproved pet approaches the feeder when the access door is open. If the access door is closed and the unapproved pet approaches the feeder the access door remains closed.

Open Mode – The access door remains open at all times unless the unapproved pet approaches the feeder and then it closes and will remain closed until the unapproved pet leaves the feeder. The access door has a 30 second delay after the unapproved pet leave the feeder area before it reopens.