About five years ago I bought a Catit water fountain for my ferret. After several years the water has started to smell bad—it’s a rather sharp, unpleasant odour. My ferret still drank from it, but we were concerned so we removed it and went back to using a plain water dish. However, we’ve got two new arrivals—they’re very boisterous and always upset the dish, so we want to go back to using the fountain, which is too heavy to be overturned and doesn’t require refilling as often.
Anyone know what might be causing the odour and how to fix it? We did rinse out the charcoal water filter every few days when we refilled the fountain, and we put a new filter in every few weeks. The whole fountain also got disassembled and hand-washed with dishwashing liquid every few weeks. We recently soaked the whole fountain in vinegar; this removed the calcium buildup but didn’t get rid of the smell. We also tried replacing the pump, but to no avail. Any ideas what else we can try? Unfortunately the fountain is not dishwasher safe, or else we would try that. Could the smell be coming from algae? There’s no trace of green anywhere.
I’d suggest disassembling it and laying out each piece separately on paper towels, about a foot or 2 apart. Leave it out overnight. Then the next day, go over it an sniff at each piece, to find the one(s) that have the odor. It may be just one or two pieces. Then you can work on de-odorizing just those parts, or even replace them.
Start with what t-bonham@scc.net suggested to find the problem. Once you have localized the smell, a quick soak in bleach water (10 parts water to 1 part bleach), followed by a VERY thorough rinsing often does the trick. The soak shouldn’t need to be more than a few minutes.
I had a Catit for several months, and it was quite troublesome. That’s putting it gently. Besides the mineral deposit problem, the sliminess from pet saliva required frequent cleaning. After a while, the trouble to benefit ratio led me to throw it out.
I bought another brand of pet fountain, which was simpler to clean, but it was still more trouble than it was worth. Cleaning and refilling simple bowls is much simpler. When your pets get thirsty, they will figure out how to drink simply.
Right. Ignoring all the bowls & fountains you have set up, and will jump up onto the kitchen sink, and meow piteously until you turn on the faucet a trickle that they can drink from.
Yes, they’ll do that, until you quit obeying them. Take the water bowl to the sink and fill it with fresh water, and take it to the fresh water place, without giving any to the cat in the sink. After a few repetitions, the cat will understand. You have to draw the line somewhere. You know the joke, “Dogs have owners; cats have staff.” Yes, but you don’t have to be the cat’s slave.
She might as well be a cat as far as the locals here are concerned. I used to take my little Frettchen for a walk on her leash every evening, and we couldn’t go more than half a block without someone stopping me and asking, “Was isn das für’n Viech?” (What kind of animal is that?) Some of the more adventurous types would venture a guess or two… here are the most common:
“Des isn Hund?” – “Is that a dog?” (no; does it look like a dog to you?)
“Des isne Ratte?” – “Is that a rat?” (usually got asked if Frettchen was poking her head out of a shopping bag and they didn’t see her body)
“Des isn Iltis?” – “Is that a polecat?” (I got this one alot; pretty close, at least)
“Des isn Marder?” – “Is that a marten?” (again, pretty close, but no cigar)
“Des isn Biber?” – “Is that a beaver?” (guess I can’t blame the Europeans for not knowing what a beaver looks like)
“Des isn Waschbär?” – “Is that a raccoon?” (ditto; no raccoons over here)
“Des isn Seelöwe?” – “Is that a sea lion?” (I kid you not!)
“Des isn Igel?” – “Is that a hedgehog?” (I once got my languages confused and thought I was being asked if she was an eagle… that really would have been something!)
The questioning gets a bit tiring after a while; I took to answering with, “Keine Ahnung; i’ hab’s im Wald gefunden.” (“I dunno; I found it in the forest.”) Some of the reactions I got to that were priceless.
