Why wont my cat drink water from her bowl.

by Brittney

My cat is now 3 months old. I am wondering about a behavioural problem. She does not want to drink out of her own cat bowl. Any time my husband or I has our own cup of water, she insists on drinking out of our cup instead of her own. I make sure to change her water daily, we give her the purified water we drink, I have changed the type of bowl she uses for water, and even gave her one of our cups to see if she would drink out of it on the floor. Nothing has worked. I am concerned because I feel like she is not getting enough water. When she tries to drink from our cups, I pick her up and bring her to her own water and show her thats her water, but she wont drink it. I don't know what to do. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks!

Reply
Hi
my cats are the same. they have their own bowl of water but wont use it. However they will drink out of puddles, water buckets outside, cups left around the house etc.

i have never fully understood why but because cats are stimulated by smell and sight and water in a bowl is practically invisible to them that they prefer water which has a bit of flavor , puddles etc.

Perhaps when you are drinking your water the sound of the drinking triggers the desire to want to drink but then when they get to static bowl of water they lose interest.

i don't really know the answer. some say that the cat water fountains work because the water is moving (my cats like drinking from a dripping tap so these fountains would appeal to cats who enjoy that).

https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-bowls.html

Other than that cats get a lot of their moisture from their wet food. Also you could try your cat with the cat milk you can buy (my cats drink that too sometimes)

best wishes Kate

---