The best dog bowls in 2024, tried and tested

Finding the best dog bowl for your furry friend is important when it comes to spoiling — er, feeding and hydrating — them. Along with a dog harness, dog collar, dog bed and leash, a dog bowl should be one of the first things you buy. But it can be a bit overwhelming finding the right one, whether you’re shopping for older dogs or chow hounds or looking for a filtered water fountain if your pet prefers something a bit fancier.

To help, we tested 17 food and water bowls and divided them into three categories: regular food bowls, slow-feeder bowls and spillproof water bowls. We had a few different dogs try each bowl to see how they liked them, and we tested each bowl for ease of cleaning, spillage and overall aesthetics and sizing. After taking each bowl through many delicious tests, the winners of each category easily stood out.

Best dog bowl: Max and Neo Stainless Steel Dog Bowl

The Max and Neo Stainless Steel Dog Bowl is a classic dog bowl with few frills, which is one of its benefits. It’s a good size, it’s easy to clean and it has one necessary feature: a grippy rubber bottom. This is a perfect bowl for dry kibble, wet food or water.

The stainless steel bowl is easy to clean, as you can just pop it in your dishwasher. It’s also a bit heftier than other stainless steel ones we tested, so it is slightly more durable if your pup is rougher with it or if it gets banged around. There are three different sizes: the 6.5-inch small bowl has a capacity of 32 ounces, the 8-inch medium bowl can hold 50 ounces and the 9.5-inch large bowl can hold up to 80 ounces of food or water. We tested the medium size, which had more than enough room for 1 cup of dry dog food.

The entire base is covered in grippy rubber rather than just a ring around the edge like other bowls. When I used the bowl on the kitchen floor, it didn’t move around at all while my dog was trying to eat, even when he was enthusiastic about a special, wet-food dinner. The rubber bottom combined with the slightly heavier material means that if you’ve got a dog who likes to nose around and flip their bowl, this is a good option to keep a clean floor.

The price is more than others on the market for just one bowl, but you get a solid, no-slip bowl. Plus, every time you buy an item from Max and Neo, they donate the same item to a dog rescue.

Best slow-feeder dog bowl: Mr. Peanut’s Silicone Slow Feeder

When dogs eat too fast, it can increase their risk of choking or bloat, according to the American Kennel Club. So if you’re looking for a bowl to help slow them down, the Mr. Peanut’s Silicone Slow Feeder is for you. It’s made from flexible silicone, it has a large suction cup on the bottom and it uses a beehive design to create many little compartments for food. This means that when you pour dry kibble in, you have to spread it around a bit, but the compartments are ideal for eating slower without frustration.

Because the bowl is made from silicone, you can freeze wet food or yogurt in the spots for a long-lasting treat without worrying about the bowl breaking. The soft silicone also means your dog has less potential to hurt its teeth if it starts to chomp down more aggressively. The silicone is still thick, so the ability to destroy it is slim.

We tested this on a few different floors with different dogs. All the dogs enjoyed eating out of it at a slower pace but with little annoyance. With our main tester dog, his time to eat increased by 22% when using this slow feeder versus his regular bowl. That isn’t a huge difference, but it is enough to slow down our pup while not having him take forever or get frustrated — a perfect middle ground for dogs who are medium-to-fast eaters. The bowl’s entire base is a large suction cup to prevent the bowl from moving around. It had trouble fully sticking to a hardwood floor, but it easily stuck to linoleum. Regardless, because of its weight and grippy material, it still barely moved around when not suctioned to the floor.

If your dog eats really fast and you’re worried the Mr. Peanut’s bowl won’t be slow enough, check out Outward Hound’s Fun Feeder Slo Bowl, which was the hardest bowl for our dogs to eat out of. Plus, Outward Hound has even harder bowls for your tenacious pup too.

The Mr. Peanut’s slow feeder comes in three sizes: the small holds half a cup of dry food, the medium holds 1 cup and the large holds up to 6 cups. We tested the medium, which is just over 8 inches in diameter. It is also dishwasher-safe and cleaned well, even with all the smaller compartments.

Choose the Mr. Peanut’s Silicone Slow Feeder if you want one that easily reduces your dog’s eating speed without being too discouraging. It’s easy to clean, extremely grippy and very affordable.

Best spillproof dog bowl: Upsky No-Spill Pet Water Bowl

Whether it’s after a run outside in warm weather or just getting up from a nap, my dog loves to dunk his whole snout into our water bowl and dribble water across the entire floor. He doesn’t seem to notice, but I sure do. The Upsky No-Spill Pet Water Bowl claims to be a no-spill, no-drip, slow water dispensing bowl, and after multiple uses, I found that it almost completely cuts out the potential for drips and splashes.

The plastic bowl is 9 inches square and 3 inches high and holds 35 ounces of water. The outside of the bowl has cute pawprint details, as does the inside, where the splashproof construction is used. This design works by having a disk with holes (to let some water through) that floats on top of the water in the bowl. That way, when your dog wants a drink, they must lap up the water gently and slowly rather than sticking their whole snout into a deep water bowl. At first, my dog was hesitant, but once he realized that this was a water bowl, he began to drink and, to my luck, didn’t have a completely wet snout after.

Only a few drops of water made it around the base of the bowl rather than entire streams of it dripping off his nose and onto the floor. I would be curious if my smart dog would eventually learn to push the floating disk down all the way and continue his slobbery ways, but while testing this for a few weeks, that didn’t happen. Other bowls we tested, like the Salodal Store 4.4-Liter No-Spill Water Bowl and the Prestige Pets Road Refresher, were similarly constructed but did not reduce the spillage nearly as much as the Upsky bowl. The Salodal barely reduced spillage, while the Road Refresher bowl did, but the floating disk sometimes got slightly stuck and made it hard to get to the water.

The winning bowl comes apart into three sections — the bowl, the floating piece and the border — and all parts are dishwasher-safe. The base of the bowl also has four grippy corners so that it won’t slide around. It is lightweight but appears fairly durable. The Salodal bowl also has a grippy bottom, while the Road Refresher does not; both are dishwasher-safe. Even though both other spillproof bowls hold more water (the Salodol holds 4.4 liters and the Road Refresher holds 54 ounces), the Upsky was the bowl that worked the best to reduce spills, making it our winner.

If your dog constantly gets water all over your floor, the Upsky No-Spill Pet Water Bowl is a game changer for its drip-proof design, grippy bottom and aesthetically simple look. No more wet socks for you!

How we tested

To find the best dog bowl for each category, we tested various metrics, including if the bowls were easy to clean or dishwasher-safe, what they were made of, their size and if the bowls slipped around too much on the kitchen floor. For the specific categories, we looked at how much a slow feeder slowed a dog’s eating without being too challenging and if the spillproof water bowls reduced dribbles post-drinking. Then, we compared the bowls in each category to judge which ones worked as they were supposed to and which your dog would like best.

Here’s a full list of all the tests we ran and the qualities we considered.

Usage and material

Specifics and extra features

How to choose a dog bowl

Some dogs — like my yellow lab growing up — don’t care what type of bowl is placed in front of them as long as it contains food. But even if your dog doesn’t care, you might! Dog bowls come in different sizes and colors; some are heavier-duty, while others are tiny and portable. Then there are ones made with features that go beyond just feeding or hydrating your pup, like bowls that help slow down their eating, bowls that are elevated for older dogs and water bowls that are drip- and splashproof.

Regular bowls without extra features for a specific purpose are usually made from stainless steel or plastic. Most are dishwasher-safe and much less prone to breaking than bowls made from ceramic. Options for sizing range from the ability to hold 1 cup of food to 4 or more cups for large dogs who eat a ton; usually, the sizing gets wider in diameter rather than deeper. Smaller bowl options are ideal for small dogs who don’t need a lot of food at each meal or for portability while traveling. Of the dog bowls we tested, one feature we liked on many of the regular dog bowls was a rubber base or a silicone ring on the bottom, which helps the bowl stick to your floor. That way, the bowl isn’t sliding away from your dog as they try to eat. A heftier bowl can also help it stay put rather than a very lightweight stainless steel.

Try a slow feeder option for your pet that wolfs down its food within seconds. Slow feeders have protrusions from the bottom of the bowl so the dog has to work around the pieces to eat and thus is naturally slowed down. The protrusions are often displayed in a fun, puzzle-like design, with some having a more abundant design for really fast eaters and some having a simple design for dogs who need just a bit of slowing down. Many of the slow-feeder bowls we tested have other top features, such as being dishwasher-safe and having a grippy bottom.

Other types of food bowls include those that are elevated or slanted. Elevated bowls can be easier for older dogs to eat out of, as they don’t have to bend down as much to reach their food. Some bowls are slanted, which is ideal for dogs with shorter snouts, such as pugs, boxers and bulldogs. With a slanted food bowl, the kibble gathers to one side, and your snorty dog can eat a bit easier because their nose isn’t pressed to the bottom of the bowl.

The bowls for hydrating your dog get even fancier. Some have active filtration or water fountain options that constantly cycle water through. Filtered bowls often come with a carbon or charcoal filter to keep the water tasting clean and a possible foam filter to catch hair or dirt. Filtering water bowls and bowls that cycle water through a fountain do have to be plugged into a power source.

The last category of water bowls includes designs for your slobbery, drippy and drooly dog — bowls that aim to reduce splashes and drippage. These are often designed with a piece of plastic with holes in it that float on top of the water within a bowl. That way, instead of your dog dunking its entire nose into the deep water, it has to lap gently at the water resting atop the floating piece. They can still get water, but the construction makes it so that the water is in their mouth, not all over their jowls, noses and whiskers to drip onto your floor.

Other dog bowls we tested

Regular dog bowls

The Yeti Boomer is a solid dog bowl —?literally. It has a hefty weight of 1.9 pounds, which is good for a dog who gets a little rough during mealtimes. That, paired with the grippy bottom, means it can’t slip around too much. It holds up to 8 cups of food or water and is made from dishwasher-safe stainless steel; a 4-cup option is also available for $40. The main reason this didn’t make the top cut? It’s pricey at $50 a bowl but has clean lines and is made from durable stainless steel. Pick your pup’s favorite color from the 18 choices, and if you order from Yeti, you can personalize it too.

The Bella Bowl by Loving Pets is a simple option with cute pawprint and bone designs on the side. You can choose from 10 colors and four sizes: small, medium, large and extra large. The small has a volume of 15 ounces, the medium has a volume of 27 ounces, the large has a volume of 27 ounces and the extra large has a volume of 72 ounces. All the bowls are made from dishwasher-safe stainless steel and have a removable rubber ring to prevent slipping. It did feel a bit light, so it would not work well for voracious eaters.

This 32-ounce stainless steel bowl by Van Ness has a good depth — 2.5 inches deep and 6.5 inches wide — so it takes up little space while still holding 4 cups of food or water. As a simple bowl, it is very affordable, but there is no grip on the bottom, so it slides around a lot if it’s not on another mat.

We tested the Gorilla Grip Stainless Steel metal dog bowls in the 2-cup size, which was ideal for a 5-month-old puppy. The stainless steel bowl is 2.25 inches deep and 5 inches in diameter; other sizes include 4-cup, 6-cup and 8-cup options. These bowls came close behind the winning regular dog bowl, as they are very similar. Both come with a silicone bottom for a solid grip, but the equivalent-sized Gorilla Grip bowls weigh slightly less than the winning option. A pup could more easily nudge this around during eating and make a mess. You can pick from 12 different colors for the grippy base.

The OurPets Comfort Diner Elevated Dog Food Dish contains two dog bowls that are elevated 12 inches off the ground, making it helpful for older dogs who need a little love for their joints. Other sizes include a small (4 inches off the ground) and a medium (8 inches off the ground). The bowls were large, and our dog testers enjoyed eating from them. However, the whole thing is huge and not very visually appealing. The base is made from plastic and is more than 2 feet wide, so it’s quite a site wherever your dog takes their meals.

The Enhanced Pet Products Slanted Dog Bowl is a solid design for dogs with short snouts, such as bulldogs or boxers. With a slanted vessel, dogs with shorter snouts can still eat and breathe rather than pressing their nose straight to the bottom as they scarf down their food. The stainless steel slanted bowl comes in three sizes: the small size holds 1 cup of food, the medium holds up to 2.5 cups and the large holds between 2 and 5 cups. It is dishwasher-safe.

Slow feeders

The Gorilla Grip Slow-Feeder Dog Bowl came in a close second behind the winner. It comes in sizes that can hold 1, 2 and 4 cups of kibble and 10 colors. The base has a grippy border so it won’t slide around while the dog tries to get their food out of the puzzle. The design has nine straight protrusions that allow for a challenge in eating, but it isn’t too difficult. It’s ideal for dogs that need a low or medium level of slowing down their eating. The main reason that this one didn’t take first place is because when the dog was enthusiastic about getting all the pieces, the bowl did move around slightly.

The Outward Hound Fun Feeder Slo Bowl does slow down dogs’ eating, but the size and color we tested had areas in the design that were too small to get the kibble out. The feeders range from slow to slower and then slowest; the purple color with a swirled flower design is in the slower feeder category. It slowed down our testers’ eating and made it more interactive, but one puppy had trouble reaching all the pieces without getting frustrated. If your dog needs a slow feeder that’s more effective than the typical ones on the market, check out this or Outward Hound’s harder bowl.

This is perfect for dogs that don’t fully chow down their food but could slow down a bit. The Mr. Peanut’s Interactive Slow-Feed Dog Bowl has a protruding center to make eating more challenging but not too difficult, like others with more intricate inner designs. The stainless steel bowl in size medium can hold 2 cups of dog food, while the large holds 3 cups and the small holds 1.5 cups.

Although the LickiMat Wobble Dog Slow-Feeder Bowl can work as a bowl, its depth (6.5 inches deep) means that with kibble, it’s just a regular bowl. It didn’t wobble too much with dry dog food but is very interactive and engaging when used with wet dog food or something you can spread, like yogurt or peanut butter.

The OurPets Spiral Slow Feeder’s design differs from the other slow feeders we tested as it is made to fit into your own bowls. The silicone spiral has a large suction cup, and the diameter of the spiral is 5 inches, so it can fit into most medium or larger bowls. It did slow down my dog’s eating, but be wary if your dog is quite the chewer, as chunks could easily get taken out of the silicone.

Spillproof water bowls

The No-Spill Water Bowl from Salodal Store has a similar design to the other no-splash bowls with a floating disk. The basin is quite large at 4.4 liters, so you can fill it up a bunch and even if your dog is exuberant with drinking, it can’t splash out. However, if your dog’s problem isn’t the splashing but the dribbling of water from their mouth and chin, this won’t help fix that. The floating disk has a depression in it for the water to come through, but it is 4 inches wide and 2 inches deep. That means that unless your dog is gigantic, their whole snout can still fit into the pool of water and get all slobbery and drippy.

The Prestige Pets Road Refresher has a similar design as the Upsky No-Spill Pet Water Bowl and the Salodol No-Spill Water Bowl, which use floating disks to stop spillage or splashing from your dog. With the Prestige Pets Road Refresher, the disk didn’t float and sometimes would get stuck near the bottom. When that happened, the water pooled above it, allowing my dog to stick his whole snout in and then dribble water everywhere as he does with a normal bowl. It’s also made from dark gray plastic, so it was hard to tell when the water levels were low at a glance.

This isn’t your regular water bowl. Rather, it’s a full-blown drinking fountain ideal for multiple dogs or even a cat and dog. The PetSafe Drinkwell 360 Pet Fountain was the most complicated to assemble, but it still took less than 10 minutes to follow the helpful instructions. It’s also quite expensive at $60, but it does hold 128 ounces of water that is constantly filtered and moving. The filtration comes from both a carbon filter and a foam filter, and the pump helps circulate the water; this needs to be plugged in to run.

It’s made from stainless steel and comes with five stream options via different attachments that you click on the top of the fountain. Overall, my dog liked this option and drank from both the bowl and the streaming water, but for the price and the size (it’s more than 14 inches in diameter), it was hard to see the value for just one pet.