A DIY Raised Feeding Station for Charly + Free month to BarkBox!

We recently celebrated the second anniversary of having Charly as part of our family. (You can read about when we got her here and the 1st year here.)  Our lives and home would not be complete without this big (150lb!) girl who is part St. Bernard and part Great Pyrenees.

The most enjoyable thing about the second year with Charly has been seeing her and Faye form a relationship.

They are quite the opposite in size, which was a little fearful for me at first, but the way they cuddle up together is so cute. However, the way Faye feeds Charly all of her food…we're working on it. Ha! For Charly's 2nd gotcha anniversary, we've teamed up with BarkBox (a monthly box of treats, toys and goodies for dogs delivered to your door) to share a DIY raised dog bowl we made for our girl and to share FREE BarkBox offers at the bottom of the post for all of our readers with pups, too!

Here's the thing, Charly has been eating and drinking from her bowls on the floor her whole life. We have done some research on the subject and it really is best for larger dogs to have a raised bowl placed about 6" lower than their back for proper digestion. Her back is about 28" high, but we felt like 20" would be perfect for her since her head is mostly in line with her back.

Since 20" felt a little tall for a feeding dish with legs, we decided a wall-mounted feeding station would be perfect. I started with some scrap wood and 2 5qt metal bowls.

I traced the outside rim of the bowls just to get a visual of how big I needed to keep the board, but I needed to draw the inner rim to know where to cut the actual holes so the bowls would sit inside but not fall through. There are a lot of ways to do this (protractor, string and pencil, etc) I just found a plate that fit inside the bowl and traced that.

I drilled a pilot hole in the center, large enough for the jig saw to be able to get in and finish off cutting out the circles.

I sanded the whole thing smooth and then added a few coats of Minwax Dark Walnut stain, followed by a few coats of Polycrylic to seal the whole thing after the stain dried.

While that dried, I spray painted these white metal brackets I found at my local Ace with some gold spray paint.

Once everything was dry, I attached the wood and brackets together with a few screws and measured the height on the wall of where we wanted the top of the bowls to sit, 20 inches in our case.

Then, we just attached the feeding station to the wall using anchors, where there were no studs, and screws. It was a quick project that is working great. Plus, it has made cleaning up any spilled food or water a breeze with the clear floor.

The second part of our gift to Charly was her very own subscription to BarkBox, so every month she'll get 4-6 full sized products, including everything from innovative toys and gadgets to all natural, healthy treats and more. BarkBox edible products don't include formaldehyde and are made with minimal processing and the toys, grooming and hygiene products are almost always sourced from American vendors. So it's something we all can feel good about. Also, if your pup has special allergies, subscribers can opt for an allergy-friendly BarkBox for pups who are allergic to beef, chicken, turkey, gluten, wheat, soy, and corn. (You'll need to email happy@barkbox.com once you’ve purchased your subscription to get added to the allergy box list).

Here was her first box we gave her on her "gotcha day." She started licking her lips and was ready to dive in.

For our dog-loving readers, BarkBox subscriptions start at just $18/month and are tailored to your dog's size. They are offering our readers 1 free month added to any plan using coupon code CHRISLOVESJULIA (ie. if you purchase a 1-month plan, you'll receive 2 months of BarkBox, if you purchase a 6-month plan you'll receive 7 months, etc...).

They also have an online store, BarkShop, where you can purchase not only items you may have missed from past boxes, but also cool products exclusive to BarkShop. Check it out and get 1 free bully stick on BarkShop purchases over $10 using coupon code CHRISLOVESJULIA.

We love you Charly! It's been a cuddly two years with you.

Special thanks to BarkBox for sponsoring this post and for loving dogs as much as we do.