Spill-proof Suspension Dog Bowls

This Instructable will show you how to make a spill-proof dog bowl using suspension physics. My family has a problem of accidentally kicking our dog's bowls and making a mess everywhere. I suspect we are not the only people with this problem. I designed this structure to suspend the bowls, so if it is bumped, the semi-elastic braids will absorb some of the shock while the swinging motion absorbs the rest.

This project is relatively straight forward, and the mess prevention is definitely worth the work.

Supplies:

2x Dog bowls

1x Roll Jute Twine

Round and Square Dowels (the length you need is calculated in the first step).

Fabric (length also in first step).

Tools:

Saw

Scissors

Yard stick

Wood Glue

The first step is to check how tall your dog's bowl should be off the ground. This website has a list of breeds as well as how to calculate it if your breed is not on the list.

Frame (Round Dowels)

Legs:

You want the suspension structure to be 16" taller than the bowl height given above. If you dog's bowl should be 12" off the ground, then you need 4x 28" tall dowel rods to be the legs.

Cross supports:

Take the leg length and multiply it by .57. In this example, since the legs are 28" then the cross supports would be ~16". Cut 4 of those.

Center Span:

Take the leg length and multiply it by 1.2. 28" * 1.2 = ~33.5". Cut 2 of these.

Bowl Holder (Square Dowels)

In this case, the dog bowls I used were 8" in diameter. Large dog bowls are best for this because they provide more stability than a small bowl would. The frame should be twice as long as the bowl's diameter with 3 cross beams the length of the diameter. In this case, it was 2x 16" dowels and 3x 8" dowels.

If you, like me, are not a scout, then the next step of tying knots might not be enough to support the structure. I trying using just knots to tie it together, but I could not tie them tight enough to be rigid. The way around this is to cheat and use a generous amount of glue.

To make this work I used a round file to make a small divot in the cross beams so they will glue to the legs better.

I glued them, clamped them, and then tied the knots for aesthetic reasons.

The knot that I used for this is a Square Lashing. It is not a hard knot and I learned it for this project. This website explains how to do it with pictures.

You need ~3' of twine for each knot.

Here you are lashing the legs to the cross beams. Your goal is to end up with 2 squares that look like the 2nd picture.

Now that you have the 2 squares tied together, it is time to tie the spans on. Tie (and/or glue) the spans onto the cross beams attached to the legs.

For the braids, you need strips of a light-weight fabric. You want to look for something that will stretch some when you pull on it but nothing crazy.

Cut 12 30.5" length of fabric and braid sets of 3 together. Be sure to make the braids the same size.

Take the square dowels and glue them together like the picture above.

Once the glue has dried, use the braided cords to hang the bowl holder from the corners.

Add the bowls and now you are done!

Now you don't have to worry about spilling food or water everywhere anymore, and your dog can eat more easily.