
If any pets on the lot have learned the Come Here command, the "Call to Eat." interaction will appear when clicking on a bowl that has food in it. An extremely Neat Sim with a Finicky pet may be able to fill a bowl several times before it will need cleaning.

How often a bowl will need to be cleaned depends on the cleanliness of the pets who use it and the neatness of the Sims who fill it. Cleaning a food bowl will empty it, but the "Clean" interaction will appear well before the bowl will become so dirty that pets avoid it, so it is enough to clean the bowl before filling it. In The Sims 2: Pets, food bowls will occasionally need to be cleaned. Its durable polypropyloam molded design means it will probably outlast you, your pet, and likely civilization as we know it. It doesn't do much else, because it doesn't need to.

Pets don't understand money, so why spend a fortune on them? The Pet PlaCater will comfortably store your pet's food and water for those precious moments between when you fill it, and they eat it. Also, food bowls do not need to be cleaned in Unleashed.

In The Sims: Unleashed, food bowls are double bowls, and two pets can eat out of one at the same time.
