I have two cats, a 2-year-old female and an 8-year-old male. I’ve had them both over a year. They get three cans of cat food a day (various flavors of Friskies), and there’s a bowl of water for them 24/7.
I have never seen either of them drink water. Not once. I work at home, so I’m in and out of the kitchen at all hours, and I’ve never caught them in the act. All of my previous cats drank water, but not these two. They are normally active, and neither of them has any health problems. And there’s no other source of water available to them. And the water level in the bowl gets only slightly lower, from evaporation.
So are they getting enough water from their food? It’s not like they’re dropping dead from dehydration, but I’m still wondering.
If they’re on canned food they are getting quite a bit of water from that but I’m surprised that they aren’t drinking at all from their water bowl. Are you sure there isn’t some other source they are sneaking water from, like a dripping faucet, the saucer of a potted plant, or the bathtub floor after somebody takes a shower? Or of course, the best water bowl in the house, the toilet. :rolleyes:
It’s hard to say if your cats specifically are getting enough water. But, I do know some cats can be so picky that they don’t drink enough and this can make them more prone to bladder crystals. If you’re worried about it you can buy a pet fountain, the flowing water is more attractive to some cats. Or simply try moving the water bowl around throughout the week. Mine seem more inclined to drink out of a bowl they’ve just discovered in a new spot than the bowl that’s always next to their food dish. Ice cubes in the bowl can draw their interest as well.
A tv show I saw once said that cats like to ‘find’ their own water. They recommended putting water bowls in different places around the house and letting them pick the one they like. Each cat might like a different location.
Could it just be that the cats hear you coming and stop drinking? Cats would easily hear you getting up from a chair or the bed, opening doors and walking around. My experience with cats is that they’re pretty sociable as long as they’re not sleeping or resting. A drinking cat would be up and active and might be much more interested in saying hello.
You could always do an experiment by putting two bowls of water out, with one protected by a cage or something that would prevent drinking but permit evaporation. See if they really do drop at the same level.
Cats, from what I understand, being desert creatures, don’t need as much water as dogs, for example. And cats that eat mainly moist food don’t drink all that much – I’ve never seen Maggie (who will only eat canned cat food – she refuses to eat dry) drink from the water bowl. They get plenty of water from their canned food. Our other cats eat Science Diet, in addition to Friskies, and they drink more water.
You might want to ask your vet, but fofr the most part, they SHOULD be all right. Dopers?
Bah!
I bought one of those expensive flowing waterers, and the charcoal filters it uses, and pay for the electricity to keep it running continuously.
And the cats still insist on drinking the muddy water from watering plants, or dirty rain puddles in the back yard, or jumping up in the sink and meowing piteously until I turn on a trickle of water from the faucet.
It’s all part of their plot to train me to be a mindless servant.
I’ve found the fountain to remarkably increase the amount of water my cats drink. I feed only dry food, and that may have something to do with it. That said, my daughters cat (same diet as mine, 8 years old) just died of renal failure. It’s actually pretty common in cats, but the vet said chances are increased by a “dry only” diet. As has been noted earlier, cats usually get their moisture from their food, not from standing water supplies. One of my cats is 12 years old and fine so far, but I’m seriously considering adding some canned food. Renal failure is very hard to detect, almost symptom free until it’s too late, and while you can try to slow it down in the early stages, it’s incurable.
Animals aren’t idiots, if they got enough water they’ll drink it. But cats love moving water. My cat got to the point where she’d stand next to a faucet and mew like nuts. Then you’d turn it on and she’d drink from it, and play with it.
She’d drink from a bowl if she had to, but you had to listen to her mew for an hour before she’d do that.
If you left coffee out she’d also drink that, I think she liked the milk in it.
She would also sink her teeth into the aloe plants and suck out the juice.
My dog was another one. He’d have a nice clean fresh bowl of water and he’d look at it and say “I can drink this or I can drink that puddle of water full of dirt, old leaves, bugs, and chlorophyll.” Then he’d drink the puddle water.
Our Misty used to do that. (I miss her terribly. :()
Buffy actually likes lemonade.
It’s a good thing to give them a variety, though, because exclusively canned food, from what I gather, is bad for their teeth.
As far as pet food goes, what you want to look for on the label is two things:
%100 Complete and Balanced Nutrition
and a certification of approval by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO)
But like I said, our cats DO drink plenty of water from the bowls – we have three in the house that are regularly refreshed.
AND they do get a variety (Buffy gets less canned food, though, because she’s so fat).
Maggie’s the only one I really never see drinking from the bowl – but she eats exclusively canned food (dry food is a toy). Well, that and people food when she can manage to get it.
My cat has a bowl of water by her food too, and she deigns to sip it on occasion, but mostly she likes what’s left on the floor of the shower (I can see her grubby little pawprints :D) and, if I’m not careful, the water from the jar I rinse my watercolor brushes in (I know - not good:eek:) She also licks condensation of glasses, so yeah, I have to conclude she likes to work for it.
I’ve never seen our cat drink from her water bowls, inside or outside, despite a regime of covert surveillance designed to catch her in the act. Like many other cats, she prefers alternative sources to the receptacles provided specifically for this purpose.
I once watched her drinking from the birdbath while a sparrow came along and took a bath in her water bowl.
I once had a girlfriend who had a cat that was also picky about his water. He would only drink water from a bowl after a couple days of not drinking. His preferred vessel? A glass. A drinking glass. Why he preferred to push his head down into a small mouthed glass rather than a nice, open expanse of a bowl I’ll never know, but it did lead to a very funny incident…
I got a frantic call from this GF one night because the cat, as you may have guessed, got his head stuck in his drinking glass. I went over to her place to help her get it off. Now, being an engineer, my original idea was to heat the glass so it would expand, and cool the cat so he would shrink, so I suggested we put the cat on ice and the glass on the stove.
Upon learning that her concern was for the cat, and not the glass as I had originally thought, I merely slid a small straw in-between his face and the glass to break the seal and the partial vacuum he had formed inside the glass.
Our water dishes are changed three times a day - and we usually check the one in the foyer (we have three dishes), to make sure the dog hasn’t drank all the water.
Maybe that’s it – try changing it more often, people.
