We have one of those, too. One of our cats was fascinated by the bubbles, and he figured out that if he drank enough water at one time, it would eventually bubble. So he would be at the bowl lapping away for five minutes or more, keeping an eye on the reservoir bottle. As soon as it bubbled, he would stop drinking and stare at the bubbles. When the bubbles were gone, he left.
One day, I accidentally made it bubble by hitting the reservoir bottle in his presence. He’s a very smart cat, and he made the connection instantly–instead of drinking the bowl dry, just tap it with a paw to make the bubbles. What he didn’t understand is that you can only get so many bubbles until someone drinks some of the water. I put the reservoir away the day I came home to find the bathroom floor flooded because he had tapped a little too hard.
We still use the bowl part, though, because both cats can drink from it at the same time.
I wouldn’t get the fountain, myself. Our other cat (the female) likes to play with water by dipping her paws in and shaking them. We keep the waterbowl in the bathroom for a very good reason. (There’s another one in the kitchen, with their food bowls, but they rarely use it.) She was addicted to faucet drips for a while, but she kept breathing in the water, and we were afraid she would have lung problems from it. She made the switch back to bowl water without too many problems.
Hubby refuses to put dishes into the dishwasher. He claims not to know how to load it ‘properly.’ :dubious:
We finally settled on a compromise: he would put any dish/mug/glass he used into the sink and run water into the item so the food stuff wouldn’t harden on it before I got a chance to deal with it.
Our cats consider this wonderful. They jump onto the counter and perch with hind legs on the counter and front legs down in the sink, and work their way from dish to glass to mug, taking a few licks from each ‘offering’ until returning to drink their fill from one of them.
I can just see the thoughts in their little catty minds. “What have we here?” <lick, lick> “Hmm. Coffee with cream and sugar. Okay, but ordinary. How about this bowl?” <lick, lick> “Faint but tantalyzing taste of oatmeal with…” <lick, lick> “yes, definitely light brown sugar. Excellent! But what’s in the blue mug?” <lick, lick> “Ugh, orange juice!” <shudder>
And so on, as the little gourmets work their way through the wine, er, water tasting.
(Yes, all dishes get washed in the dishwasher, full soap and hot, hot water, before making it back to the cupboards.)
I was coming in just to post something similar! I used the pump from an old fountain after the paint started peeling. It had suction cups so I just popped it in their ceramic dish. I have to clean it every few days though, so it’s a bitch, but the kitties seem to love it.
I want one of those storebought fountains now though. Now if I could just find one with a statue of a peeing man in it, it would fit our decor to a T!
Save one of the used ones, unpick the thread closing the top, dump out the used charcoal, and rinse out the cloth bag. Then refill it with fish-tank filter charcoal, obtainable at many stores, and much cheaper than buying more Petmate filters.
The fish-tank charcoal is finer than the original charcoal, so you have to thoroughtly rinse the filled bag in water before re-installing it in the water fountain. Otherwise you get black/charcoal colored water (which looks awful, though cats drink it just fine). That’s a nuisance, but this finer charcoal should also do a better job of filtering the water for your cats.