My dogs and cat won’t drink my water. They are always going outside to drink the puddles. I’m afraid they’ll injest mosquito larvae or something. That can’t be good.
I am on a well. We have a chemical injection system that injects Sodium Hydroxide into the water to neutralize the pH. We have a water softener. We also have a reverse osmosis unit for drinking water.
All of this and the little buggers still won’t drink the water. The water company has tested it, and it’s of good quality (by their standards). Neutral pH, low TDS, no iron/chlorine/calcium etc.
I’m assuming that there’s some odor that they can smell that we can’t, or some other taste factor that is undetectable by us lowly humans.
How much plastic is there in your water system ? The pets could be offended by the monomer and plasticizers that leach nto your water from the plumbing.
I know our cat always preferred rain water, but he never refused to drink our well water. If an animal gets thirsty enough, they would probably drink anything. Have you tried giving them bottled water inside and see if they drink that? If they don’t they there’s a phychological element in play. Are you giving them the filtered drinking water or straight from the tap? Our cats drink either and our water is pretty bad. Our dog prefers water that is not softened, but he will eat either.
What kind of bowls do you serve their water in? Pretty much everything except glass (or ceramic) will affect the flavpr of the water. Most pet dishes are plastic or metal, both of which flavor the water, especially if the water sits for any length of time. Maybe your pets are flavor snobs, and don’t want metal- or plastic-tinged water.
Then again, maybe they’re flavor trash, and want all that icky (but good, to them) stuff that puddles offer. Think baout how dogs roll in anything smelly, and wallow in anything with enough of a scent. To us it’s oogy, to them, it’s pure heaven. Might be the same deal here.
What kind of bowls do you serve their water in? Pretty much everything except glass (or ceramic) will affect the flavor of the water. Most pet dishes are plastic or metal, both of which flavor the water, especially if the water sits for any length of time. Maybe your pets are flavor snobs, and don’t want metal- or plastic-tinged water.
Then again, maybe they’re flavor trash, and want all that icky (but good, to them) stuff that puddles offer. Think baout how dogs roll in anything smelly, and wallow in anything with enough of a scent. To us it’s oogy, to them, it’s pure heaven. Might be the same deal here.
Ceramic bowls. Have tried plastic. Not much plastic in the system. When I fill their bowls, I always use the drinking water tap - from the reverse osmosis system.
When they go outside, they drink primarily from a small plastic bucket or from the overturned lid to a drink cooler.
Is this unhealthy for them? Should I let them continue to drink the rainwater?? Can there be harmful chemicals or parasites in the rainwater?
I tried that. I put tap water into the bucket that they drink from outside. They still drank at first, but then clearly preferred the other outdoor sources.
