Everywhere I look I see information stating casually “cats don’t drink much” “cats drink very little” etc. but how much is “very little”?
Could you just give me an idea of the amount your moggies drink so I can compare ?
The reason for asking is this - as a kid we had outdoor cats, you’d sometimes see them drinking from the bird-bath but, until old age hit, I don’t really recall them using their water bowl inside. In “those days” they ate tinned meat, fresh fish bits once a week with biscuits just as a crunchy topping.
Current housing situation dictates that our little thing is mainly an indoor cat altho’ he is outside for at least an hour every day. He’s three and a half months, full of energy, healthy appetite (eats a mix of dry food and tins but much more dry food than previous cats) … I notice him drinking regularly from his bowl. He may lick the shower floor after we’ve finished, help himself out of an abandoned glass too. (Added to this I rarely find evidence of urination in his litter box altho’ I have seen him go outside so I’m not too worried.)
Honest to God, we once had a cat who liked a nice cup of tea in the mornings.
The one we have now prefers the bird bath to her bowl. I think a cat needs less water if provided with ‘wet’ food rather than biscuits. I guess the amount a cat drinks will vary according to weight, temperature and diet.
I just measured my cat’s water bowl. It usually gets filled with about a cup to a cup & 1/4. Most days he can drink about half that. Some days most of it. Some days almost none of it.
He also frequently drinks out of the bird bath though, so it’s hard to say exactly how much he’s drinking. Plus he’s always hiding his bottles here & there…
Madpansy64 used to have a cat that would drink champagne. She’d take a couple of licks, then sneeze and shake her head (because of the fizz) and then go back for more. I knew it was probably sick and wrong to let her drink it… but it was funny, and most importantly, not my glass. (this was 20+ years ago, so blame it on Reagan)
My cat likes to drink a lot – we also have one of those cat fountains, and I think that he goes to it just as much to play with the water as to drink from it.
I read somewhere that cats have an instinct to find water, and so a water bowl in the same place every day isn’t really satisfying their urge to find it, because it’s right there where they left it the last time. The theory was that this is why some cats like to lick the shower – it’s the thrill of finding water where there often isn’t any water. I have no clue how one would know what cats are thinking, but I am always one to indulge weird cat ideas. The article suggested occasionally putting out a bowl of water in an unexpected place for the cat to “find.” My cat does in fact seem to enjoy this.
Ha! I was going to add to my post “but don’t put it anywhere on the path that you would take when you get up at 3 AM to go to the bathroom” – speaking sadly from personal experience.
We’ve got three cats, entirely indoor, and a water bowl that holds about a quart. We refill it every morning, but if we didn’t, it would probably empty every other day.
I strongly suspect that they’re drinking only about 2/3 of that, and the rest is evaporation, since the humidity in our house is always kept artifically low.
We have a semi-feral cat. When we sit on the deck she’ll jump in our laps, and practically demand to be petted - with both of our hands.
Kitty-Kitty never comes into the house, just eats what we put on the deck. We often put out water for her, but as far as we can tell, never touches it. She prefers to sip from (what my wife calls) plant saucers - dishes we put under plant pots, in which water collects.
I’ve thought about giving her milk but have heard it’s not good for cats. Older cats, anyway.
We have six cats (yes, SIX), and out of them, only one doesn’t drink much that I can see. Maggie eats primarily canned food-she won’t touch the dry stuff, so she doesn’t really need the water. The rest of them eat dry, so they do drink pretty regularly.
And Buffy enjoys a nice tall glass of ice cold lemonade every now and then.
I don’t know where Dewey finds water, because it seems he doesn’t drink much of what’s in his bowl, and I put the toilet seats down, but I’m always scooping plenty of clumps, so I guess he’s okay.
