Thwarted!!!

Just before we left for our last vacation Needles decided we could use an automatic feeder for our cats. We are gone a lot of the time with traveling to see family so instead of finding someone to feed and water our furry housemates we decided on the Le Bistro automatic cat feeder. Upon reading the reviews we found that most people were happy with the feeder and that the cats no longer beg food or trip up the feeder person trying to get to the food bowl to feed the cat. While we are happy with the feeder in that we no longer have to find someone to provide sustenance to our demanding cohabitants, we have noticed that they still beg for food and chase after us when we go back to where the feeder is. I suspect it is because they think they aren't getting feed enough. We have adjusted the food allotment several times and if we go any more than what we have now, one of the cats seems to eat too much at a setting and when we get home from work we find mounds of partially chewed food on the carpet. We read in some of the reviews that some peoples cats are super intelligent and get extra food from the feeder. I assure you intelligence plays no part in this action, more like gluttony. The only thing is he is robbing from the next feeding. Needles was concerned that Tugger, the skinner of the two, might not be getting the food since Copper, the plumper of the two, might be getting Tuggers portion. We did some internet research to see if anyone else had the issue and modified the feeder to keep one cat from getting prefeeding treats. We found a solution and after some thought put the plan into effect. Copper would trigger the food paddles by sticking his paw up the food chute and flipping the paddles to dislodge a few morsels of food and have them slide down the chute to a starving cat. He would continue to do this until no more food would dispense. The way we decide to keep the meaty paw from its goal was to half the size of the open area in the chute with a knitting needle going across the chute. This seems to have done the trick. Needles and I will keep an eye on the situation and see if any more modifications might be needed. I do know that when we came back from our last vacation the food bowl was dislodged from the hopper. This might need to be further modified to keep this from happening.