Cat puts stuff in the water dish: Why?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Since nobody really knows why cats do stuff like this, I’m putting it in IMHO rather than GQ, but mods, feel free to move it if you see fit.

I’ve had cats all my life, so I’m pretty familiar with their cool/annoying, hilarious/infuriating little behaviors, but this one has me stymied. The cat I have now is a 2-year-old domestic shorthair that we’ve raised from a pup. (Sorry, no photo; I have no camera ATM). Her personality is fairly independent and standoffish. She doesn’t like being picked up, wants no cuddling and only limited petting, but is generally friendly and an all-around good egg.

When she was about 18 months old, she decided it was her job to sit on a ledge we use as our setting-stuff place (where you set the stuff you have in your hands when you come in the door) and pitch things into the water dish. That was mildly amusing, but we moved the water dish and put an end to it after a while. Just the last 6 months or so, she has begun finding items made of cloth (socks, the dishcloth, a hand towel, stuffed dog toys) and dragging them from distant points in the house so she can put them into the water dish. This is usually just funny, but she sometimes does not get them all the way into the dish and they siphon all the water out into a pool on the floor.

On the bright side, I now know where the low spot in the kitchen is. However, she recently draped a sock over the edge of the water dish in my office and created a small lake in the middle of our new bamboo floor. I’m just happy I had to make a midnight visit to the facilities, so I was able to prevent permanent damage.

She almost always does this in the middle of the night, but since our schedule is erratic that could be at 3 a.m. or 3 p.m. I don’t think it is related to boredom; she has cat toys (aka crumpled balls of various materials), and there are innumerable spiders to chase in the basement, birds to watch at every window, and objects to knock off my desk.

So, any ideas what this behavior relates to? Any suggestions for curbing it?

2

I don’t know why, but I have small dogs. I got them from the same breeder. He told me animals enjoys putting things in their water bowls. So, it’s best to feed small animals from water bottles. http://www.martinscages.com/images/full/lix-04.jpg Something like that. I stick them in a cage so they can walk in whenever they’re thirsty. I have one for each of my dogs. You can try that.

3

At least one of my cats is very fond of putting his favorite things in the food bowl. They are very fond of bouncy balls and elastic ponytail holders. I’ve always assumed that the food dish is unequivocally the cats’ territory, so special personal belongings go there.

Might I suggest sitting your cat’s water bowl in a big tray?

4

That’s what I had to do…get a boot tray to put the water dish in, because Alice likes nothing better than to splash all the water out of the water bowl at certain times of the day. She only does it to the bowl on the floor, not the one on the bathroom counter. THAT water bowl is the one that Odin feels compelled to drop a piece of food into, thereby fouling the water.

5

Heh…I can’t picture my cat drinking like a guinea pig out of a water bottle. She EATS things that drink out of water bottles! I’m glad that works for you, YaraMateo, but I think it’s probably not the solution here. I probably should have mentioned that she also likes to throw things into the toilet, so it seems like it is related to any body of water, so to speak. I suppose BetsQ’s tray idea would work, but I’m really trying to make my house less petcentric and more of a human habitation (limiting the dogs to only a dozen toys on the floor instead of 30, etc.), so I kind of hate to make the water dish an even more conspicuous feature than it is.

BetsQ, the water dishes are shared (the cat and my 3 dogs), so I suppose she could be expressing her dislike of having to drink dog backwash, but she’s never had any problem with sharing space with dogs and has always acted like she was just part of their pack. Maybe I’ll try giving her a little water dish of her own and see if she stops with the vandalism.

6

One of ours will–pretty much as soon as the water bowl is filled–go get one piece of food out of the food bow, carry it over to the water bowl, drop it in, and leave it there. We have no idea why. We used to think it was accidental, but we’ve seen her do it, and the water bowl is now a good six feet from the food bowl. But there’s a single piece of food in there every morning and every evening when I get home from work.

7

The tiniest of terrors, Dot, does the same thing. Every toy of hers end up in the communal water bowl. Her sister, Mayme, does not do this. Their brother, Pepper, does not do this. Their other siblings, Moo and Betty, do not do this. We know, because we asked. Dot even likes ‘burying’ her sopping toys in my bed. Oh happy day.

It was as if one day she suddenly decided everything needs to go in the bowl. The only thing I can link it to is she liked chewing on wet washcloths, stolen out of the bathtub. Or, it could be a vision thing. She smacks the water with her paw before she drinks - that Mayme also does. We now have a plastic tray covered with a towel under their bowl.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we’ll be receiving a fountain bowl in the mail. The dish is small enough that whatever Dot tries to drown will need to be pretty small.

8

Ohhh, now that vision idea is interesting! I’ve noticed that Freebit seems to have some difficulty seeing stationary objects, which I find a little odd. Once in a while she decides she wants a shred of cheese or a piece of a dog treat, and it takes her much longer to find it on the floor than I’m accustomed to. She might be having difficulty seeing the level of water in the white water bowl and doesn’t want to end up with a snootful when she goes to drink. I think I’ll have to perform some experiments.

9

Generally speaking, cats do a lot of stuff just to annoy humans. Or at least that’s what I’ve always maintained.

10

Oh, yes, we have a scrunchy bandit in the house too.

Putting them in his food dish I can deal with… but I draw the line at the litterbox. :eek:

11

Our cat sometimes puts a leaf in her water dish. I thought she was just making tea.

12

My one cat likes to “drown” her fuzzy mice in the water bowl. She leaves her “prey” out of the kitty fountain and just puts them in the large metal bowl.

Years ago, I had a cat who liked to hide his fuzzy mice in funny places. At the time, I was living on my own in an apartment. I was at work one day and reached into the pocket of the jacket I was wearing and found a fuzzy mouse. I had laid the jacket out on my bed while getting ready and I think that is when he put the mouse in there. He also had a habit of putting them into shoes, so I would have to dump my shoes before putting them on. When we moved in with my now husband, he would stash mice in my husband’s briefcase.

13

Get a cat bed.

My mom gave me a couple of these for my cats. I took them from her to be nice but I secretly thought: “My cats don’t give a fuck about these things”

To my surprise, my cats LOVE these things… And what’s more interesting is that each cat has his own bed. In other words cat #1 always sleeps in bed #1 and cat #2 always sleeps in bed #2. They never switch beds.

Anyway, I’ve been told the psychology behind this is that cats (and dogs for that matter) need a place in the house they feel is theirs and only theirs.

Do this and maybe the cat will start dragging these random item to his bed instead of the water bowl.

14

Yep, that’s our cat’s favorite thing to put in the toilet. I might have to resort to a crew cut.

Not only does she have her own bed permanently installed adjacent to the window, but she has taken over the dog beds and they all have to sleep on the hard floor. She never puts anything in any of her beds.

I think the answer is probably, as Lynn Bodoni suggests, just the joy of befuddling the humans, but I’m still going to test out that vision problem idea.

15

Your cat is learning to use TOOLS. One day you’ll wake up to the cat standing over you with a circular saw.

16

Well, good. At least then my husband might get the deck done. :smiley:

17

I always thought it was just cats doing their housekeeping. One of my cats regularly puts all her favorite toys in the food and water dishes. If I’ve been good she’ll sometimes put cat toys in my bed for me to play with.

18

I’m not able to research this myself right now to see if I remembered correctly, but I seem to recall reading (or hearing) that cats can’t see what’s directly in front of their nose.

19

The DrinkWell water fountain thingy came in the mail today.

Dot thinks it’s a swimming pool. FML. No toys in it yet, but since her fuzzy butt is in it, there’s no room for toys.

20

Roughly 90% of “why does my cat do that?” questions can be answered the same way: Cats are weird.