Cats like routine and it takes will to break it. If you have a cat fountain and allow your cat to drink from the faucet, the cat won’t care.
The cat will do what its routine says and that routine says drink from the faucet. Deny her this consistantly and he/she will learn.
But you have to be prepared to put up with cries. Also you have to retrain. If your cat is at the faucet, tell her “NO,” and makes sure you do it in a voice that is “mean” so the cat knows you’re not happy.
Then bring her/him to the cat fountain and play with the water flowing and the cat will be happy then.
Also make sure your cat fountain has a similar flow rate.
A cat has a routine and they are creatures that do not like to be disturbed out of that routine. You need a lot of effort. It truly is a battle of wills
Our cat got in the bad habit of drinking from the bottom of the tub, but has now adapted to drinking from a dish of fresh water that we put there every morning after we’ve bathed.
You may be putting fresh water in the cat’s bowl, but are you actually washing the bowl too? Cats can be put off from their water bowl by odors, even their own.
I think you are on to something. My cat seems to hate his water bowl (filled with fresh, filtered water) but will drink water from any other source. He wants to go outside after a rain to lick the water droplets off of plants. He also loves licking the condensation off of a cold drinking glass or can of soda.
Just to put in my 2 cents’ worth – anything that encourages a cat to drink is good. It helps keep their kidneys healthy. I’ll second the comment on washing the water bowl too, not just rinsing it out.
Some people say that cats like their water source to be some distance away from their food source. I don’t know about that, but it could be another reason some cats like to drink from faucets.
Little Cat started with drinking from the faucet, then moved along into sleeping in the sink. I think the latter developed out of going into the bathroom with hopes that someone would come along to turn the water on; when no one did, she just decided to take advantage of the nice porcelain cat-bed she was sitting in.
Mayhem, on the other hand, likes to drink anything that I’m drinking. Water, soda, juice, tea. She’ll stick her head in the glass, and if it’s within reach of her tongue, she’ll help herself. She also loves soap–I’d never heard of this in another cat before you mentioned it, ghardester. For a while, we had a mesh bag full of soap slivers sitting in the upstairs hall (for eventual donation to some charity or other; I don’t know the details). Mayhem would rub on it and roll around on it as if it were catnip. She also loved to sleep near it. Also, she’s normally a one person cat–except for when my father is fresh out of the shower. So long as he’s smelling of soap, she’ll hang around him and treat him sort of she would normally treat me. It’s a weird thing.
I do wash the bowl, but only about once or twice a week. Perhaps I need to do that more often or something. I don’t know though, its starting to sound like its normal for cats to have a fascination with the faucet.
Hello! this is an old post, but maybe someone will find it useful. My cat does this same thing but in a far more obnoxious way. He will jump up on the counter, i the sink, and in the bathtub to get to a leaky faucet. he knocks things over, paws t me while im in the shower, and he bugs me while im brushing my teeth. My vet said tht this is a fairly natural behavior for cats (if it’s not excessive) because they are, after all, hunters. they’re animals and have an instinct to find water. they also tend to ust like running water better. that’s why they make those little pet water-ers now that purify and run constantly. BUT for chipper (my 9-mo-old) the vet sai he may have a minor calcium deficiency. if he’s seeking out anything with deposits almost constantly, then he may just crave the calcium from them. He said it isn’t a big deal. as long as there are no chemicals, it’s fine. just be careful about bathtbs because they can get into the soap and stuff. he also said that if it becomes a problem, like he’s breaking things and being generally annoying, I can put him on a kitty vitamin and tht should satisfy his cravings a little.
just what I know. I haven’t tried the vitamins yet, but I’ll post if i do.
