Adopted dogs and cats rescued from shelters have provided the inspiration behind some of Neater Pets’ most important products. In fact, a rescue dog named Duke can be credited with sparking the idea that launched the company.

Fernando Becattini, Jr., Neater Pets CEO and chief innovator, first came up with the idea for the Neater Feeder when the spilled food and water around his dog’s bowls caught his attention and he thought there had to be a better way to feed pets than simply placing a pair of bowls on the floor.

Duke and Dakota, the Becattini’s two German Wired Haired Pointers, were world champion mess makers. Duke was particularly good at it which is probably why he had been returned to the shelter by three previous owners before the Becattini’s took him in. One of Duke’s favorite tricks after running around the yard on a hot day was to tip over his entire bowl of water and lay in the puddle to cool off.

Fernando’s first attempt at controlling the mess was a simple storage bin with a section of the front wall cut out. With the bowls placed inside of the bin, no spilled food or water reached the floor. Fernando and his wife Jackie were happy with the results until a few days passed and the spilled food and water sitting on the bottom of the bin turned into a soggy gross mess worse than the original problem. Jackie told her husband to figure out a better solution or his contraption was going in the trash. Fernando went back to the drawing board and after multiple rounds of improvements eventually came up with something that resembled the Neater Feeder. He showed his father, Fernando Sr. his prototype and together they came up with the final design for the Neater Feeder, the award winning, best selling pet feeder that can be found in thousands of stores around the country including PetSmart and Petco. Neater Feeder has also been featured on national network TV programs like The Today Show, The Early Show on CBS, ABC News and Fox & Friends and has been one of the best-selling pet products ever on QVC in the United States, U.K., Germany, Italy and France – all because a rescue dog named Duke had terrible table manners.

Since Duke the Becattini’s have rescued several more dogs and cats which led to the development of other new product lines and, as you would expect, more products are in the works. For the Becattini’s, pets have been truly inspiring in more ways than one.