Another Cat Problem

[rbnyc]

One of my cats won't drink water. We even bought one of those cold, filtered, kitty fountains, which the other 2 cats love, but Bevy will not drink water.

How do I get him to drink.

(I know he must drink some water, sometimes or else he'd be dead, but my husband and I have never seen him drink. He had some health problems and we need to get him to drink more.)

[madmax]

1. Have the same problem with my dog

He likes his water really cold and only in glass bowls. :shrug:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

2. Pour Chicken or Beef broth over wet food or people food

that way he'll get nutrition and hydration.

[mikehiggins]

3. Get an eye dropper

and squirt the water into the back of his mouth (gently, of course--the thing's got claws after all)

Getting a cat to do ANYTHING it doesn't want to do is a challenge. This has worked for me to put medicine into various cats over the years.

And a cat can dehydrate itself no matter whether you see it drinking or not. They are finicky beasts and not always their own best friends.

[Merrick]

4. Your cat

Is obviously an alcoholic. Try beer instead.

[aquart]

5. Add water to his food. Cats like sauce.

[Bertha Venation]

6. Do you feed him canned food?

If so, he is getting SOME water.

I suggest a couple of things:

Try putting different containers on the floor for him. Put his water in a mug, a soup bowl, a small mixing bowl. See if he drinks from one of those.

Try putting a cup of water on the bathroom sink for him. Our cats love drinking out of that.

See if he'll drink from the faucet in the bathroom or bathtub. It can be a pain to stand there & wait for him for a couple of minutes, but if he likes to drink that way, at least he will get some water. 'Course you can always do what I do: Richard follows me & Mrs. V. both into the bathroom because he knows before we sit on the can, we will turn the tap on for him.

(We both have "PUSHOVER" tattooed on our foreheads.)

[ret5hd]

7. one of our cats will only drink from a running faucet...

which is a pain at 3:00 AM

[BurtWorm]

8. I was just going to suggest that.

Some cats insist on having fresh aerated water. They're such snobs!

[rbnyc]

9. Lots of good ideas here.

I think I'll start with putting out different types of dishes.

Thanks everyone.

[Another Bill C.]

10. He's drinking

from the toilet. Close the bathroom door.

[rbnyc]

11. Hmm.

Okay, I'll try that too

Thanks.

[Elad]

12. If you're feeding him wet food, he'll need virtually no water

Cats evolved in the desert, and thus adapted to get most of their water from their prey. If you feed him wet/canned food, which is closest to their natural diet, they'll get a majority of their water from their food.

If you're feeding him dry food, he needs much more water. Just keep it fresh, and assuming there's nothing medically wrong with him, he'll drink it. If you can, monitor his urine output to make sure he's not in pain, struggling, or has any blood in the urine, and that he's urinating at least once a day - if he has a bladder infection or other medical problem he'll avoid drinking to avoid having to go through the pain of urinating.

[rbnyc]

22. Thanks.

The problem with Bevy is that he has poorly developed rectal muscles and gets constipated all the time. We feed him wet food with some extra fiber once a day, and keep dry food out all the time.

Every time he gets constipated it costs us 200 bucks, so we're trying to be as preventative as possible.

Thanks again for the info.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

28. Constipated Kitties and wallets

I feel your pain- been there twice within the past year... To make it worse, both times were after-hour visits to the vet. Emergency vet visits ain't cheap.

[Dookus]

13. go to any decent pet store

and by a cat fountain. They're little water bowls that run the water through a pump, making a little faucet for them. My cats LOVE it.

[davsand]

14. We are ready for our second one.

I've had issues with this one because our water is so hard the minerals build up in the pump and kill it. The next one will get water in it out of a bottle.

Makes me feel like a real ass that my cat has to have bottled water and WE don't! Oh--the things we do for our pets!

Laura

[rbnyc]

20. That's what our vet said...

...and we spent about 70 bucks on one. My OTHER 2 cats love it. Bevy is afraid of it.

[nini]

15. My cats will only drink from a glass or glass bowl that is in my bathroom

I have a bowl of water in the kitchen by the food bowl, but nooooooo - they won't drink out of there. They want the same water mama uses to brush her teeth with I guess.

They're so strange ;-)

[Neko hime]

16. Depth perception

One of my cats has a problem with depth perception. I bought a ceramic bowl that had a fish design painted on the bottom. Now, he dips his paw in and pats the bottom before he drinks. But he drinks! The others all love the kitty fountain.

Good luck!

[rbnyc]

21. Interesting...

...He has other signs of poor depth percention.

[spinbaby]

17. Try different things

We have one cat who will only drink bottled water served in a dixie cup in the bathtub--visitors can never quite figure out why there's a cup of water in the tub. The others don't seem to care where they drink their water. Try different containers in different places and try bottled water. As a last resort, you may want to offer some of that milk that's been treated so cats can drink it.

[cmf]

18. What type of food are you feeding him?

If it's solely canned/wet food, he may not need more water.

[LynneSin]

19. Maybe he's drinking out of the porcelain water bowl

Make sure you keep the toilet seat down, he might have developed a taste for toilet water!

[rbnyc]

23. Yucky!

;-)

He would drink out of the toilet instead of from his 70 dollar cold filtered fountain. That cat!

[geniph]

24. Many cats don't like to have their water near their food

Try giving him a bowl of water in another room, in a quiet spot where the other cats don't bug him. It's not common for a wild cat to eat and drink in the same spot; they usually take their food to a secluded spot away from the traffic of a watering place, so try moving his water well away from the food. I've found that for some peculiar reason known only to them, my cats prefer their water to be up on something, so I put their water dishes and their fountain up on little tables. Not that my cats are pampered or anything. :eyes:

Failing all else, lightly salt his food, and see if that helps. If you're having an issue with constipation, give him 1/2 inch of Petromalt daily, if he'll take it. If he won't, there's a powdered form of it that can be sprinkled on his food. The suggestion to give him a little broth was a good one, too.

[flama]

25. Poor Bevy!

Does he eat OK? Watson wouldn't eat or drink when he ran into the riser of a stair and broke a tooth. If Bevy's not eating either, maybe you should have his teeth checked.

After your Uncle Hank started feeding Watson ant poison, he wouldn't eat or drink either. (I know Bev hasn't been poisoned!) The vet told me to give him Gatorade with an eye dropper. My mother's old cooking syringe without the needle worked even better.

You know that Watson had a depth perception problem since he had only one eye. That never kept him from any bowl of food or water unless there was some other problem.

Please give Bev a big hug from me - and tell him I said he's got to let you or your hubby watch him drink some water. Think it might be necessary to tell him that I've got claws too?

:loveya:

Ma

[grasswire]

26. tuna water

cats love the water from a can of tuna, diluted.

[nuxvomica]

27. A little salt in a bowl of water

That may make the water more attractive to him but he may have a urinary problem as others have said. I'd have him checked.