Best Deals on Pet Products

CR’s Lauren Kiesel has a 6-month-old cockapoo who loves these bully sticks. The high-protein springs are meant to occupy pups as they gnaw their way through the treat. “The curliness makes it easier to grasp, longer to eat, and fun,” Kiesel says.

The Petlibro One RFID Smart Feeder was the fanciest automatic feeder we evaluated (it came with great advanced features like a customizable LED screen), and it was on point with food measurements and schedules. But adult or small-dog-sized kibble got clogged in its chute.

Here’s one item that will help keep your feline occupied when you’re otherwise engaged. “My 10-year-old cat, Frannie, is obsessed with playing, and even more obsessed with treats,” says CR’s shopping managing editor, Mary Beth Quirk. “So when I’m busy working at home and can’t entertain her, I’ll throw some treats in this puzzle box, and it keeps her entertained. Sometimes, she destroys the box in the process, which is fine because it’s cardboard, so we just recycle it and order a new one.”

Pair this lickable food mat with a delectable treat to keep your kitty content and happily occupied. Quirk, one of CR’s shopping editors, spreads Churu purée treats on the mat with the spatula provided and attaches them to her cat Frannie’s food tray with the suction cups on the bottom. “She’ll spend minutes on end cleaning out every nook and cranny, leaving me to work in peace,” she says. 

Aside from serving as a stimulating activity for pets, puzzle treat dispensers can be a great way to encourage slow(ish) snacking. Nicky Besuden, CR’s associate director of new ventures, recommends this dynamic treat dispenser: “My dog loves all the treat puzzles.”

The PetSite 3-in-1 is multifunctional, easy to assemble and fold, lightweight, and sturdy. It’s also really versatile for travel. It serves as both a car seat and portable carrier, complete with a carrying strap. It has a maximum capacity of 33 pounds, so you could potentially fit two small animals, and the mesh top makes it easy to keep an eye on them. Our evaluator reported that it was easy to assemble, and the stroller moved easily, even on bumpier surfaces.

It’s $30 less than it was a few weeks ago, marking the lowest price we’ve ever seen. And with the weather cooling off in many areas, there’s no better time to take your less mobile pup (or, if you’re like me, your cat) for fresh air and sightseeing.

The corded Shark PowerDetect HZ4002 offers top-notch cleaning for pet hair as well as bare floors, and performs above average on carpet. It features an auto-detect mode that adjusts the brush roll speed to the surface, transitioning efficiently between carpet and hard floors. It also has two brush rolls: one with rubber fins for optimal contact with surfaces and a soft roller to capture small particles. It can be pulled apart for compact storage, allowing it to stand on its own and take up minimal space. This model even boasts the ability to deliver powerful suction in the reverse direction for more efficient cleaning in both forward and backward motion. In our member surveys, Shark corded vacuums earn a top-level mark for predicted reliability and a near-top-level mark for owner satisfaction.

For a less expensive option than other robovacs, the Eufy C10 T2292 is a great choice if you don’t have too many carpeted areas in your home—and it’s back to the best price we’ve seen so far this year. While it’s only middling at cleaning dust and debris from carpets, it’s excellent at cleaning bare laminate floors in our lab tests. The vacuum is also impressive at cleaning up pet hair, making it ideal for pet owners.

This vacuum’s body is slimmer than those of the other vacuums we’ve tested, and its low clearance means it’s less likely to get caught under furniture. Although the vacuum’s dustbin is on the smaller side, that might not be much of a problem, because the vacuum automatically deposits debris into a self-emptying station. 

The Petlibro Dockstream Smart Pet Fountain is a WiFi-enabled device that lets you accurately monitor your pet’s water intake. It holds more than half a gallon of water, and the whole fountain is wireless. It even has a motion sensor, so it only runs when your pet approaches it, making the battery last even longer. The app can also alert you when water levels are low, which is especially nice since the container is opaque. I own the non-smart version and rely on the indicator light (and the pesky sound of the pump struggling to suck up water when the level is too low), which isn’t ideal.

“I have two of these, and they’re great because they encourage the cats to drink more water,” says Amanda Arnold, senior manager of business analytics at CR. “Cats notoriously don’t usually drink enough water, so having these helps keep their water cleaner and the kitties healthier!” The fountain comes with a filter inside and is dishwasher-safe.

This is a great, budget-friendly option if you’re not sure your pets will adapt from a bowl to a fountain. You can try it out without investing too much (and you can always invest more in an upgrade later on if you want). The Veken water fountain, consisting of five parts, was intuitive for our tester to assemble, and the carbon and foam filter replacements are low-cost as well,1 at $10 for a four-pack or $24 for 16. It was the noisiest option, but that didn’t deter the tester’s pets. And the flower can be removed for a low-profile bubbler effect rather than a raised fountain.

The Furbo dog camera is at a decent discount, just $10 more than it was on Prime Day. In evaluating the best pet cameras, this was our editors’ top choice, thanks to its aesthetically pleasing design and camera with a wide viewing angle. The ability to choose a voice prompt for the treat toss is a bonus. The device’s basic app features include live view, tossing treats, talking to and hearing your pet, and barking alerts. The nanny cam subscription includes cloud recording, advanced barking alert, Doggie Diary (a video summary of the day that you can choose to save to your device), activity alert, selfie alert, and person alert. And yes, you can still use the Furbo if you have a cat.

For those looking to splurge (or take a breather from scooping up litter), this automatic, self-cleaning litter box can be a saving grace. “I have this, and would have loved it if someone had bought it as a gift since it’s quite pricey,” Amanda Arnold, senior manager of business analytics at CR, says. “I’ve had it for about three years now, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever purchased, like ever!” You can also buy a bundle on Amazon that includes accessories like a mat, a ramp, and a fence to help contain litter.

There are many reasons to like this cat litter from Arm & Hammer. In our tests, it masked the smell of onion immediately upon contact and maintained a pleasant, clean scent for 24 hours. On its own, the litter’s scent wasn’t overpowering and reminded our tester of one that lingers on freshly laundered sheets. The clumps from liquid messes stayed together when shaking the scooper, and the litter formed the most uniform layer around solid waste. 

This was one of the dustiest litters we tested. However, it was a champ at masking smells. It also clumped easily and could be transferred from the litter box to the trash without falling all over the floor. Its Febreze scent wasn’t overpowering, either.

Earth Rated Max Absorbency Pee Pads were a top performer in water absorption, but they were not our top pick because they cost significantly more per pad and per 100 square inches than the other pee pads we tested. But if these are within your budget, you’ll probably love the four adhesive tabs on the back as much as our tester did. Because of this, they stay put, and they also hold up well in shredding tests.

And if you choose to autoship with Chewy, the discount brings that price down to $24 for the first order.

The Casfuy Dog Nail Grinder is a two-speed grinder with three grinding ports that are designed to suit the size of your dog’s nails. Because it was less powerful than the Dremel, it took longer to get a nail down to the same length. However, it was also quieter, which made it a better choice for the more anxious dog in our evaluations. It does lack a safety guard, but because it operates more slowly, it’s easier to watch your progress and stop before you reach the quick.

CR’s digital product manager, Merideth Mergel says her cat loves Kong’s ZoomGroom brush, which can also be used for dogs. “She wakes me up in the morning not for food, but to brush her,” she says. “And if I’m not moving the brush the way that she likes, she will brush herself against it. I’ve bought this for a few friends with cats, and they all love it.”

The Analan Mini Pet Hair Remover is $2 less than normal. It is a triangle-shaped device that has three unique ridged sides, and it did very well in our evaluations. The rubber material created a static attraction with our velvet pillow so that it was able to pick up all of the cat hair we applied to the surface. But this was the only surface where it picked up hair. On the polyester-linen blend pillow, it bunched up the hair in easier-to-pick-up piles. Ditto for the carpet, where it did a great job of gathering up the hair in neat piles, but we did notice some redepositing of hair on subsequent swipes as it became stuck on the ridges. The hole in the center of the triangle allows for a comfortable grip. Because the ridged surfaces are so small, cleaning a large area, like a whole upholstered couch, takes a significant amount of time.

The Cube, whose price is back to the typical sale after a $13 drop, is not specifically intended for pet tracking but to help people keep track of a range of possessions, including cars, luggage, and kids’ backpacks, as well as pets. That puts the Cube at a disadvantage as a pet tracker, despite its competent core tracking abilities. The device is relatively large and heavy, but most dog collars won’t fit through its thin slots, so you need to purchase an add-on collar clip for $25. More significantly, the app lacks pet-specific features like fitness and activity tracking and a light beacon for spotting your dog at night.

On the other hand, it does let you set a home “safe zone” and virtual fence and emits a fairly loud sound alert. It’s also very solidly constructed, creates detailed and easy-to-read location histories, and, like the Link, is capable of delivering high-temperature alerts.

The Link pet tracker has a very bright light for spotting your dog in the dark. And unlike some other models, the app’s activity tracking features differentiate between minutes spent walking and running. That can be a useful feature if you want to make sure your dog gets some high-intensity exercise each day. It also monitors ambient temperature to alert you if the environment is too hot or cold. But the app doesn’t record or map its location history, something that many other trackers do.