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Belinda Barfield
08-22-2012, 10:42 AM
With Matt's post about his new family member I was surprised to see so many friends of cats. :) I can't get my cats at home to drink water as often as I think they should. Supposedly a 12 pound cat should drink two small saucers of water a day. They each get a can of wet food twice a day, but they don't always eat all of the wet food either. One cat likes to drink from the bathtub faucet but I can't leave that dripping all day. The other cat likes to drink out of my hand from the sink faucet but she is really skittish so the times she does this are few and far between. They won't drink from a pet fountain. We don't have a fish tank :rolleyes: Any suggestions/ideas?

Oh, and while we're on the subject of cats - a yuck question. Is there anything you can mix into food to help with hairballs? They don't like the squishy stuff in the tube.

John Coloccia
08-22-2012, 10:51 AM
They're probably drinking out of the toilet.

Michael Weber
08-22-2012, 11:11 AM
Can't make a cat do anything:mad: My wife's cat Miss Purtle will only drink out of a measuring cup we keep in the tv room. Even though we keep a water bowl next to her food bowl she won't touch it. If the water is low in her measuring cup she will sit beside it and yowl until it's filled rather than drink from her bowl. There is hair ball formula dry cat food.

Belinda Barfield
08-22-2012, 11:22 AM
They're probably drinking out of the toilet.

Nope. Toilet lids are always down around our house. SO's rule, not mine. Kinda' nice though because the seat is always down. :D One of the few arguments we don't have to have.


Can't make a cat do anything:mad: My wife's cat Miss Purtle will only drink out of a measuring cup we keep in the tv room. Even though we keep a water bowl next to her food bowl she won't touch it. If the water is low in her measuring cup she will sit beside it and yowl until it's filled rather than drink from her bowl. There is hair ball formula dry cat food.

Love the name! Measuring cup . . . haven't tried that one yet. My cats have a water bowl also, fresh twice a day. They won't touch hairball formula dry food (brands I've tried so far). Skittish cat will only eat dry food if she is absolutely starving.

Mel Fulks
08-22-2012, 12:12 PM
We have noticed that even when our cats ask for milk they often won't drink it.The toilet thing made me wonder if the height of the water might be a factor .Where in nature would a cat find a water surface that is ABOVE their paws? I think I will try sinking a bowl into a shallow inverted cardboard box.

Stephen Tashiro
08-22-2012, 12:15 PM
You can mix small amounts of water with wet catfood. I used a few spoons of bottled water for that purpose. I only do this to help fill them up by using less food since they are overweight. I've never heard a vet declare that its important for cats consume a certain quota of water per day. Instead they emphasize that water should always be available. I've read sad stories about cats that died from kidney stones etc. and adequate water consumption is supposed to help humans with that problem.

Plopping an ice cube in the water bowl attracts some cats to drink water. I don't understand why.

Cats don't like water that's been sitting in the bowl for a long time. (A long time = 1 day) Many don't like tap water but eagerly drink from rain puddles, so chlorine may be a factor. I think many dog and cat owners fail to realize how quickly water and dry food become stale. Animals slobber on dry food when they eat from a bowl and they get particles of food into water when they drink from a bowl. The fact that Fido has food and water in his bowls isn't evidence that going to be pleasant for him to consume.

Chad Bender
08-22-2012, 12:18 PM
I've read that cats are suspicious of water sources near their food source because in killing an animal they might have contaminated the water supply. So they prefer sources that are geographically isolated from the food. Even though they are (hopefully) not snacking on dead critters (at least inside the house), this paranoia persists. My cat much prefers to drink out of a second dish that is located in the bedroom. She will drink in the kitchen (next to her food bowl), but only out of desperation, and not coincident with a meal. She will sometimes eat, and then run to the other side of the house for a drink.

In short, try putting a bowl somewhere else.

David G Baker
08-22-2012, 12:20 PM
I always have water available for our cat in a large dog food bowl. I change it every other day. I have found that if your cat is trained from when it is a small kitten you have a better chance at having it do things you want it to do. If you acquire a cat as an adult cat it will train you to do what it wants if you pay attention to it. There are cat foods that provide hairball formulas but you may have to search for one that the cat will tolerate. Our cat drank out of our toilet until I installed the 17 inch high bowl toilet then it went back to the water dish.

Jerome Stanek
08-22-2012, 12:43 PM
My daughter's cats will only drink out of a cat drinking fountain. If your cat likes running water I would try that.

Jim Rimmer
08-22-2012, 12:55 PM
We give our cat "Greenies" to aid in digestion. Don't know if they help with hairballs but she is a Persian and we get the occasional hairball. We give her those because she doesn't go outside; outside cats nibble grass to aid with hairballs (or so I'm told). Greenies are available at WalMart and PetSmart.

As for the water, mine likes ice cubes in her water and will drink from my glass (it's a large diameter glass so she can get her head in it) if I leave it on the coffee table unattended. :D I may try bottled water to see if the chlorine comment holds water, so to speak.

Lex Boegen
08-22-2012, 1:19 PM
Two things: most animals (and especially cats) prefer moving water over still water. In nature, moving water is far less likely to be stagnant and is probably safer to drink, so animals will prefer it. I have two water fountains for my cats (no I don't have a house full of cats, but one cat prefers a different room in the house from the others, so I feed and water her there. Anyhow, I use the Drinkwell Platinum Fountain. One of my cats prefers to drink from the water stream coming from the top of the unit (she also likes drinking directly from a faucet), and the other two drink from the bowl at the base of the unit.

The best cure for hairballs is prevention. The one cat that I brush daily never gets hairballs. The other two are OK with being brushed, but they get bored after a couple of minutes and scoot away, so they still occasionally get hairballs.

Sam Murdoch
08-22-2012, 4:57 PM
I've read that cats are suspicious of water sources near their food source because in killing an animal they might have contaminated the water supply. So they prefer sources that are geographically isolated from the food. Even though they are (hopefully) not snacking on dead critters (at least inside the house), this paranoia persists. My cat much prefers to drink out of a second dish that is located in the bedroom. She will drink in the kitchen (next to her food bowl), but only out of desperation, and not coincident with a meal. She will sometimes eat, and then run to the other side of the house for a drink.

In short, try putting a bowl somewhere else.


Didn't know this but it might have merit - though I've never noticed the proximity to food to be a problem. I have however noticed, and read something somewhere that confirmed this notion, that a bigger water bowl is more attractive. That is, a wider diameter that is not deep. We use a flower pot tray 8" dia. or bigger.

Jerry Thompson
08-22-2012, 6:17 PM
Long ago a I asked a man about figuring out where the wood I was working on would move the most. He said, "Wood is gonna do what wood is gonna do." A cat is gonna do what a cat is gonna do. Having had herds of them over my 70 years that is what I know about cats.

Belinda Barfield
08-22-2012, 6:50 PM
Thanks for all the advice. As I noted earlier, they don't like a drinking fountain. I used filtered or bottled water because our water here, in my opinion, is pretty highly chlorinated. I'll try putting the water in another area of the house, and possibly elevated. Interestingly enough, according to the Vet the skittish cat is half Bengal. She doesn't meow like our garden variety cat, she sort of chatters. Before drinking water from a bowl she sweeps her paw across the surface. Keep the good advice coming!

Bill Cunningham
08-22-2012, 7:50 PM
If you put the squishy hairball stuff from a tube on their paws, they will lick it off whether they like it or not. Mission accomplished

Jerome Stanek
08-22-2012, 8:27 PM
My cat shakes it off and runs around getting it all over the place

Chris Walls
08-22-2012, 8:34 PM
Belinda
Our cat "Ernestine" , a shelter cat , was as the shelter said " about 3 " when we got her. I think ALL of the cats at a shelter are " about 3". She is not picky about her water dish. We have very good water , we're on a well. She gets fresh water every morning at the same time I feed her. She's an early riser, I'm up at 5 every day I work SHE"S up at 5 EVERY day. We use both wet and dry food, wet in the morning and dry in a bowl available all day.


Chris

Belinda Barfield
08-22-2012, 9:09 PM
Belinda
Our cat "Ernestine" , a shelter cat , was as the shelter said " about 3 " when we got her. I think ALL of the cats at a shelter are " about 3". She is not picky about her water dish. We have very good water , we're on a well. She gets fresh water every morning at the same time I feed her. She's an early riser, I'm up at 5 every day I work SHE"S up at 5 EVERY day. We use both wet and dry food, wet in the morning and dry in a bowl available all day.


Chris

I completely understand. I'm up at 4:30 every day I work, and the cats don't get the concept of Saturday and Sunday.

Curt Harms
08-23-2012, 8:44 AM
I don't know that cats drink a lot of water. They don't normally pant, they don't really sweat and they don't seem to excrete all that much. We have 2 crocks about 4 feet from the dry food dishes. 3 cats are fine with the crocks as they are. The 19 lb. Maine Coon has to take a paw and pull on the top of the crock to create waves - and sometimes a mess. Then it's okay to drink. We have a sump discharge that a couple cats had fun with. If they were in the back yard they'd hear the sump pump start and make a bee line for the discharge end and have a drink. Yum.

Shawn Pixley
08-23-2012, 10:07 AM
Our cat drinks from his water fountain, the dog's water bowls, and from LOML's water glass if she's not attentive (ich!). Unless you know your cat is dehydrated, I would just keep water in a bowl (change 1-2 times per day). A cat won't deprive itself of water.

Paul Saffold
08-23-2012, 11:38 AM
Our 2 cats like their water bowl on the bathroom sink. They drink lots. Dry food always available. Their treat is a rounded teaspoonful of soft food at 6 PM. They have a hard time when the clocks change twice a year. So far no problems with hairballs as long as we give them a full-body wax job regularly. And you thought a bikini wax was painful. :eek:

Belinda Barfield
08-23-2012, 11:49 AM
Our 2 cats like their water bowl on the bathroom sink. They drink lots. Dry food always available. Their treat is a rounded teaspoonful of soft food at 6 PM. They have a hard time when the clocks change twice a year. So far no problems with hairballs as long as we give them a full-body wax job regularly. And you thought a bikini wax was painful. :eek:

Bathroom counter, I may try that as skittish cat likes to jump up on the counter for her morning brushing. That's her "alone time" with the SO. They chat while he shaves, etc.

John Shuk
08-23-2012, 3:57 PM
IAMS hairball formula food helped bigtime with our cats when we had them. That became their new food. Cats by their nature don't require water the way that people or dogs do. They are able to go longer on less water. I've read that that is why their pee smells so bad. Remember that cats are a very adaptable and successful species. They'll take a drink when they need to.
I posted a link to Amazon so you can read the reviews. Though the one I linked to is 5 small bags and much more expensive than normal.
http://www.amazon.com/IAMS-Hairball-Proactive-Health-4-Pound/product-reviews/B0026LIZBC/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Chuck Wintle
08-23-2012, 4:14 PM
Cats will only drink as much as they ever need to. They were originally desert dwellers a long time ago and Egyptians managed to domesticate them. Most of their water needs come from the food they eat and the wetter the better.

John Coloccia
08-23-2012, 4:33 PM
re: drinking out of the toilet with the lid closed

If you think a lid will keep them out, you're dreaming. LOL. I came home one night and couldn't find one of my cats. I was young...20 or 21 years old. I was in graduate school and had my first apartment. These were the first living things that I had to take care of all by myself. I was mortified. Oh no! I lost one of my cats...what the heck have I done??

*****meooowww......meoowwwww****


Huh? Where is that coming from? Closet? The fridge? The freezer?!? The OVEN?!?!??

LOL...no. To this day I don't know how he did it, but he opened a heavy drawer on my desk, jumped in, and then closed the drawer.

If you want to know for sure, sprinkle a little salt or pepper on the toilet seat cover. If they're lifting it, you'll see it moved. Back then, in 1995, having the little blue toilet dye junk was de rigueur, and I wanted to keep them out so I kept the lid down....but then I noticed they stopped drinking their water. Hmmmmm..... Salt and pepper don't lie :)

Larry Klaaren
08-24-2012, 11:22 AM
Clients ask me this question all the time. They don't think their cats drink enough water. But they are almost never dehydrated, so I tell them not to worry about it. Most dehydrated cats have kidney problems and don't conserve the water they should so they are urinating all the time. Those cats also drink an awful lot of water. If the cat is otherwise healthy, I would keep on keeping on. Remember cats are only about 4-6% the weight of a human. Most get fed too much and people might expect them to drink too much. An eleven pound cat would require about 267 ml per day of fluids, which is a little over a quarter liter or half a pint. If you are feeding them wet food, they wouldn't need a lot more.

Larry Klaaren
08-24-2012, 1:09 PM
About the hairballs. Nothing has been proven to really "help" with hairballs. That's why there are lots of solutions floating around. If there were a good one, that would be the one every one uses. We give our cats the Iams Weight Management and Hairball Control. It comes in a teal bag. That being said, we never had a real problem with hairballs before or after starting that food. On the above answer, I just used eleven pounds because that is 5 kg. Most weight appropriate cats are a little smaller.

Larry Klaaren
08-24-2012, 1:11 PM
One more thing, about putting the gel on the paws. I suggested that once. Then I got invited to come clean the carpet that the cat ran on when it took off after that treatment.

Belinda Barfield
08-24-2012, 1:48 PM
Thanks for the advise Larry. There was one gel that was malt flavor (I can't recall who made it) but no pet stores around here carry it any more. The cats loved to lick that one off of my finger. I think it was called Petromalt. I'll look for it online and maybe give it another try. I'll weigh the cats tonight since I can't recall how much they weighed on their last vet visit, just out of curiosity. They are both under ten pounds I'm pretty sure.

Mike Cruz
08-24-2012, 7:37 PM
Belinda, get a dog. Not only will they drink from anything (including the toilet bowl), but they will rid you of your cat problem...;)

Belinda Barfield
08-25-2012, 3:36 PM
Belinda, get a dog. Not only will they drink from anything (including the toilet bowl), but they will rid you of your cat problem...;)

First, since it's too late to edit my comment Larry, I meant advice not advise. :o

Mike, I don't have time to adequately walk and exercise a dog. I'm working 12 hour days right now, so a dog is out.

Good news, Pet Smart has start stocking Petromalt again. Both cats devoured a dose last night and 40 Grit (skittish cat's nickname because her tongue is so rough) nearly liked the hide off my hand - as my daddy would say.

Mike Cruz
08-25-2012, 4:31 PM
Belinda, the beauty of dogs...you can take 'em to work! They'll lay at your feet all day, not wantin' for nuttin'. Sept when you look at 'em, smile, and say, "You're a good boy! (or girl)".

I know, I know...not in the picture. Won't happen. Yes, dogs do take time from your day. You have to be prepared for it, and I'm not going to (both in the meaning that I'm not going to try AND I wouldn't be successful at) convince you to get one.

Hope your solution took care of cats' issues.

Tom Fischer
08-26-2012, 8:27 AM
My wife has a ragdoll cat. Same story with the water.
Has her own water bowl, refuses to drink that.
Drinks from the dogs water bowl, has to be on the floor, has to be fresh water, yada yada yada
Slightly photoshopped jpeg of the drama queen -

239946

Belinda Barfield
08-26-2012, 8:40 AM
Belinda, the beauty of dogs...you can take 'em to work! They'll lay at your feet all day, not wantin' for nuttin'. Sept when you look at 'em, smile, and say, "You're a good boy! (or girl)".

I know, I know...not in the picture. Won't happen. Yes, dogs do take time from your day. You have to be prepared for it, and I'm not going to (both in the meaning that I'm not going to try AND I wouldn't be successful at) convince you to get one.

Hope your solution took care of cats' issues.

Don't get me wrong, Mike. I'm a real dog lover. I prefer big dogs. When I finally get out of this condo (currently can't sell it unless the buyer has cash) I'm moving back to the "country". I'd like to get an Irish Wolfhound, Mastiff, or Great Pyrenees. I haven't done much research recently regarding health issues, etc. of the breeds. The last time I did was when I had "dog fever" right before I became a cat rescuer. Savannah is a very dog friendly town and many businesses here have dogs on site. The mechanic who services my car has 4 at his garage, two bulldogs, a large mutt, and a Dacshund. Guess which one is the Alpha.

Jerome Stanek
08-26-2012, 11:22 AM
A Pyrenees are very protective My daughter has one now she had 2 but the one had to be put down after her leg was amputated because of cancer that returned. She now has a Newfoundland that is just about as she puts it broken. She loves to swim but won't fetch and won't shake herself off. We love her though. The Pyr is another story he had anxiety attaches after his buddy was put down. He would protect her from anyone that he thought was going to hurt her. There is only 3 people that he trusts completely and I am one of them.

Mike Cruz
08-26-2012, 12:30 PM
Belinda, my guess would be a CAT! :D But, to answer your question, I'm sure it would be the German hot dog...;)

Brian Ashton
08-31-2012, 2:59 AM
One of the things we've seen with all the cats we've had is they like cool often changed water from a non plastic or metal container (glass or porcelain), and they're creatures of habit. So now we put down a glass cup on the tiles in our on-suite bathroom. At some point they discovered the glass there with water in it and they always come back to it now - even if we leave the same glass cup in another area like beside their dish... That's most likely why they like toilets. Even a puddle outside in the grass is more appetising to them than a plastic or metal bowl.