Melamine occupies an odd middle ground between ceramic and plastic, and it helps to understand it before buying. It is harder and denser than the soft plastics that scratch and then hold bacteria in the scratches, it will not shatter across a kitchen floor the way a ceramic dish does when a dog knocks it off a counter, and it takes repeated dishwasher cycles without dulling. What it will not do is survive a microwave, and it does not belong in one.

The Gibraltar pattern is a clean geometric print in blue, and the range runs to three options: a double-wall medium at 18.03cm, a single-wall medium at 17cm, and a single-wall large at 21.59cm. The double-wall version carries a cut-out in the rim, which sounds like a small detail until you are carrying a full bowl of wet food across a kitchen and have somewhere to hook your fingers rather than pinching the edge. A non-slip base holds all three steady.

• BPA-free melamine, resistant to chips and scratches
• Geometric Gibraltar pattern in a clean blue colourway
• Three sizes: 17cm, 18.03cm and 21.59cm
• Double-wall medium with a cut-out for easy lifting
• Non-slip base, suitable indoors or in the garden
• Dishwasher safe
• Listed weight 315g

On the sizes. The three options differ by a couple of centimetres across, which is a narrower gap than the names imply, so if you are choosing between the two mediums the wall construction and the cut-out are the real difference rather than capacity. Melamine is dishwasher safe but never microwave safe, and heating it is what damages the surface.

Who it's for: medium to large dogs, Labradors, Boxers, German Shepherds, Weimaraners and Dalmatians among them, in households that would rather not sweep up broken ceramic.