Mine eat in the kitchen so their meaty bones fall on the linoleum floor and I just clean up afterwords with vinegar. I do have a dish towel underneath the bowl of my messier dog to catch the veges. I have a very small kitchen so when they eat, I'm usually blocked in so I just take advantage of that time to do dishes.

I realize that dogs are going to make a much bigger mess, but a cat can get a bit carried away, too.
Now that Kaya is eating raw food I'll need to increase my hygienic vigilance accordingly.
I think I'll switch her to a bigger bowl. I sometimes take care of my neighbor's raw-fed cat and I used to think it was a bit odd that she eats out of such a big bowl. Now I see the wisdom in it; I never had to clean the floor after that cat the way I do after my cat! Seems like a nice big bowl prevents a lot of enthusiastic slopping!

Also, what's the deal with vinegar? I know it's a decent cleaner, and of course it's non-toxic, but I'm wondering if it's also got some lovely antibacterial quality I wasn't aware of? Please to fill me in...

We feed the cats and dogs their raw food (the dogs also get a forage mix of grains and herbs with some broth added to keep the "dust" down) in their normal bowls.

The dogs eat it all in under a minute or so; one of that cats still greatly prefers kibble (but still eats a little raw food). The raw food is gone within 5 minutes, and because one of our cats will eat any food it can find at any time, we just keep him separate from the others at feeding time. Within another 10-15 minutes, any remaining kibble is gone too.

Before feeding the animals their bowls are cleaned very well.

We're not feeding any of them raw bones.

H

I feed my pugs in big Rubbermaid tubs. I put old towels in the tubs to help grab the meat since the tubs are so slippery. I just put the towels in the wash and hose out the tubs. It works great. We're driving across the country right now with the dogs and their tubs just travel with us. I put the tubs on the bathroom floor, pull their meat out of the cooler and it's dinner time!