Furry Hacker

I could see this. I’ve had motherboards reboot from static affecting the USB ports. Could be a power button or similar that sends the shock straight to the board.

I think there's a video somewhere where a cat just slightly pull the plug a bit so it disconnected, and release it so it reconnected, and the feeder rebooted and did the thing OOP said.

I watched too many cat video.

Surely no one would just go in the Internet and lie

For many consumer electronics the general design used, (because it's cheap and easy to assemble) is a PCB in a plastic clamshell sort of thing which unfortunately places the PCB right where the seam in the plastic is. Usually there's some additional geometry to prevent direct exposure. But high voltage finds a way and if there's tabs with cutouts or anything like that there often is a direct path, especially for something as thin and 'sharp' as cat fur.

That being said, it's more likely to be either the buttons, power connector, or something the designers foolishly thought of as "ground" and there not actually being an earth ground

Gotta have buttons to program it. Buttons need to be on the outside.

When food is involved at least

Fat furry bastards

my cat knows which button dispenses more food, but he likes it when i press it. he's a singer

I've seen cats just reach up the chute and work the mechanism manually.

My cat Captain Crunch just purrs at 2600hz.

Cats don't like tape, and I've never been able to ground mine.

That would require more than one brain cell to rub together. All orange cats only have one collectively; and it's not always their turn to even use that one.