Your dog is likely to be happy eating any where, but if you don’t want to find food and water in every corner of your home, you probably want to get a bowl. Dog bowls come in various materials, shapes and sizes. The kind of bowl you get is determined by what you want it to do. Perhaps my favorite bowl is a collapsible model that you can use when out and about. Rather than having to carry along a standard hard sided bowl you can take along this fabric model. Waterproof and crunchable, this bowl can hold either water or food and then fit back in your pocket. Another really cool model is made for dogs that bolt their food and get bloated. Some elevated dog feeders have knobs of rubber that make the dog slow down to pick up smaller bites of food around the dish. Gas problem solved!
Of course any bowl you pick should be washable and stable. I don’t care for ceramic bowls because they break and chip, but some people really like them. Stainless steel bowls are great and withstand just about anything, even a mob of dogs at dinner time. Ideally every dog has their own bowl, but in the excitement it can take a few moments to sort everyone out.
The newest bowl I’ve seen is an ecologically sound disposable bowl. Completely biodegradable, you can use the bowl a few times and then toss it when it gets unusable. It’s a great idea for people who use the occasional dog-sitter or travel a lot and don’t want to have to clean a dog bowl after each stop.