rocket science or cat dispenser engineering?

Our cat, like all cats, is ridiculously spoilt. She need to be fed twice a day, otherwise she will go outside to kill and drag inside an animal, generally an endangered New Zealandish bird.

The problem is I sometimes forget to placate this ferocious beast and I have to hoover up the remains of a myna bird or sparrow found in peculiar places. So, in an attempt to solve the problem I got her a food dispenser from the pet store, a Vita-Pet Kitty Kitchen —sounds great, doesn't it?

The box came with little instructions and only a cryptic image: the hopper has a slanted bottom to allow food to pour out onto the tray, except the biscuits get stuck by the weight of those above, so they have added a long-s (ſ) shaped leaver to be hinged at the top of the side with the dispensing hole. What side to face up is unclear, so I have tried and failed with both directions.
I cannot work it out. I am a scientist and I cannot get the bloody food dispense to work.
I have even changed her biscuits yet the thing still does not work

As far I can work out, the problem is that the biscuits are not sliding down the slanted bottom through the dispensing hole. Increasing the incline by wedging a magazine underneath it proved disastrous as the cat toppled the dispenser over: she did manage to eat as many biscuits as she could, but I was not pleased with the mess, so I do not think that is how it is supposed to work, but that is the best I can do.


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Note: the scientific experimentation on animals presented herein has not been approved by an ethics committee.