The Little Bowls That Ride in My Glove Box

The thing that finally fixed my car did not cost much and I almost did not buy it. Two soft plastic bowls, folded down to about half an inch tall, clipped to things. That is the whole idea. I have driven one rescue transport leg a month for five years now, on the second Saturday, 90 miles down I-94 from Eau Claire to a truck stop in Tomah. For the first four years and eight months of that, my watering setup was a margarine tub.

I want you to picture the margarine tub. It rode in the cargo area of my Outback, and every time I took the exit ramp a little warm it slid, tipped, and dumped a quarter inch of water into the carpet. Then I would set it down at the hand-off, and a nervous dog would put a paw in it, and now the water is gone and I am pouring more from a jug while holding a leash in my teeth. Dale told me to just get something better. I bought the SLSON collapsible bowls in the second week of March, eight months ago, and I have not thought about the margarine tub since.

Here is what I actually use them for. One bowl is clipped to Scout's leash by its carabiner and stays there permanently, so it is always with us at a rest stop whether I planned for it or not. The other lives in the glove box. That is it. That is the system.

One bowl is clipped to Scout's leash and never comes off. The other lives in the glove box. That is the whole system, and it has held for eight months.

The reason two bowls matter is not obvious until you have done a hand-off. Scout is mine. She gets her own bowl and it does not get shared, because I do not want to be the reason something moves between dogs. The transport dog gets the second one. I fold it out, pour from the jug, set it down on the asphalt, and stand right there while the dog drinks. When we are done I dump it, wipe it with a paper towel, and it goes back in the glove box folded flat. A fresh bowl for each dog, every stop. The two pack is the whole reason I bought the SLSON set instead of a single bowl from anywhere.

What I like about them beyond that is how little space they take up when they are doing nothing. Folded, they are about half an inch tall. I have had one in the glove box since March and it has not gotten in the way of the registration or the ice scraper, which is more than I can say for anything else I have tried to store in there. The SLSON bowls are soft plastic, so they flex when a dog steps on the rim instead of cracking, and they have been thrown in and out of that cargo area for eight months without a split.

Now the honest part, because I am not going to pretend these are something they are not. At 12 fluid ounces, the SLSON bowls are small for a big dog. Scout is 18 pounds and a terrier mix, so one bowl is plenty for her. The last transport dog I had was a lab mix pushing 70 pounds, and he emptied his bowl in about four swallows and looked at me for more. I refilled it. It is a bowl, not a bucket, and on a hot day you will be pouring twice.

They also tip on uneven ground. The sides are soft, so if the ground is not level, a dog nosing at it will push it over. I have learned to set it on the flat concrete at the truck stop rather than the gravel shoulder, and if there is no flat spot I hold the rim with one hand while the dog drinks. And the carabiners are light duty. They are for clipping the bowl to a leash or a belt loop. They are not for hanging a full bowl off something while a dog pulls at it, and they are not for anything load bearing. Clip it, do not hang your hopes on it.

I should say what I compared them to. Another volunteer on the Tomah leg has a travel water bottle with a built-in trough, the kind where you squeeze and water fills a little channel. I have never owned one. I watched her use it and it looked handy for one dog on a walk. What I did not like for my situation is that it is one trough, so everybody drinks from the same place, and I would be cleaning it between dogs at a hand-off. The bowls give me two separate surfaces for two separate dogs. That is the whole reason I went the way I did. If you only ever water your own dog, the bottle might suit you fine.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you stopped by and asked me whether to buy the SLSON bowls, I would say yes, and then I would tell you what to expect so you are not disappointed. Expect a small bowl. Expect to refill it for anything over about 40 pounds. Expect to hold it steady on gravel, or find concrete. Expect the clip to be a clip and nothing more.

And then I would tell you the part that actually matters, which is not about bowls at all. The reason I keep one clipped to the leash is that a rest stop is chaos and I am one person with two hands. Leash in one, jug in the other. If the bowl is buried in a bag, I am doing that dance where I try to hold everything with my knees. If the bowl is on the leash, I unclip it, fold it out, and we are done in fifteen seconds. That is the whole benefit. Not the plastic. The fifteen seconds.

Same thing for the glove box bowl. It is a spare for the day the leash bowl is dirty or I forgot to put it back, and I have used that spare more than once. Two bowls for one dog is not excessive when one of them is a backup you never have to think about. It is the difference between a system that works and a system that works until it doesn't.

One last thing, and this is not about the bowls. Never leave a dog in a parked car. At my stops, the hatch is up, I am standing right there with the dog, and the water goes down in front of me. When we are rolling again, Scout is on the back seat on her hammock, wearing her harness and clipped in. She is never loose in the car, and she is never in the front seat. Those bowls are for stops I am present for. They are not a way to leave a dog comfortable while you go into a store. Nothing is.

If you drive transport legs, or you just take your dog more places than a margarine tub can handle, this is a small thing that quietly removes a recurring annoyance from your Saturday. Eight months in, the SLSON pair is still in the car, one on the leash and one in the glove box. That is my review.