When Cindy and I first started making long-distance trips in the car with our dog Pom Pom, we were really stressed out about her not drinking any water for the entire trip.

We’d put some water in her dish, but she’d never drink from it. Plus, pouring water into a dish and keeping it from not spilling was just about impossible. We ended up getting a travel water bottle called the Handi-Drink from Petco. We’ve had it for a couple of years now and it’s been with us on every trip we’ve taken with the dogs.

The Handi-Drink comes with a bottle with a rubber tip that allows you to squeeze water into the included water pan. Pom Pom loves drinking from the stream of water when it drips from the bottle to the pan. After some initial difficulty, Casper has finally figured out how to drink out of it–I think the loud noise the bottle makes when we squeeze water out of it scared him at first.

Considering the large number of car trips we make with the dogs, the Handi-Drink has held up really well. Also, it’s nice to not have to carry a separate container for water and a dish to pour it in–the bottle snaps right onto the water pan, so they can be stored together as one piece during travel.

On the negative side, one thing we’ve noticed is that water will leak from the cap occasionally, but it doesn’t leak enough to make any sort of mess. Also, water eventually gets harder to squeeze out of the bottle, so we have to squeeze the bottle harder. Unfortunately, the harder we squeeze the bottle, the louder the “squeeze noise.” This noise may scare off some dogs from wanting to drink from the water pan.

Overall, the Handi-Drink has been great. We just pour some water in it, throw it in the car, and we’re ready to go. It’s portable, very affordable (about 7 bucks for a small size and 10 for a larger one), and dogs actually seem to like drinking from it.

Pros: Great price, very portable.

Cons: Might be too small for big dogs, “squeeze noise” might scare off some dogs.

 

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