Puff very rarely will just drink from the water bowl. Instead he puts his paw in it and then licks his paw. Why??
-
Too many ads? Join our community of cat lovers now to reduce ads by 90%! Click here to join for free!
Why does he paw his water?
- Thread starter salemwitchchild
- Start Date
This is not my idea, I read it someplace.
Your cat doesn't like to drink still water. So he is making it move.
Your cat doesn't like to drink still water. So he is making it move.
Dino does this .........I have monitored him to see if I could see why.......well turns out if the water is too low he paws it but if the bowl is full to the top he drinks as normal with his tongue
Might be the same for you ?
cats will do that, i have a drinkwell for the cats heyu will stick her paw under the running water to drink, how eazy drinks with his tounge.. who knows? its cats being cats maybe
heyu will even paw the milk out of a glass if i am not watching her.
heyu will even paw the milk out of a glass if i am not watching her.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #5
Well I thought maybe he was trying to get more out at first. But it was full last night and he was still doing it so I don't think that's it. Maybe it is the moving water thing? He likes to drink out of the bath tub too. I've been thinking about getting the fountain but I'm afraid I may forget to fill it up and burn up the motor. I'm known to forget those little things and then my mother comes along and fills it up for them. I'm always rushing in the mornings so more often than not she feeds and waters for me... Aren't mothers great.Originally Posted by mooficat
Dino does this .........I have monitored him to see if I could see why.......well turns out if the water is too low he paws it but if the bowl is full to the top he drinks as normal with his tongueMight be the same for you ?
Leopold paws at the water, but after that he drinks from the bowl. I noticed if he doesn't "paw" it first, he sticks his nose into the water and it makes him sneeze. It kind of looks like he's checking the level of it.
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2007
- Messages
- 11
- Purraise
- 0
Huh! My cat Abby does that as well. She drinks normally sometimes, but more often than not she does the paw-dip thing. I never thought of the moving water thing...maybe someday I'll invest in a motorized bowl, but she seems to be pretty happy with the paw-dip method!
Here's one theory I've heard - If a body of water is completely still, they can't see where the surface is, so use a paw rather than their nose/whiskers, if only initially to disturb the surface of the water making it visible to them. Apparently putting marbles or stones (sterilised and too big to swallow of course) in the bottom of the bowl can help them to see where the air ends and water begins.
Ginger does that as well-I always thought it was because being Siamese she is cross eyed so maybe she could not see where the water was, but recently I noticed our 9 month old Squeeker doing it too! Kitties are just crazy and do crazy things I guess, I just hate it when they make a stop at the water bowl and then go immediatly into the litterbox so that it creates a cement paw for me to clean up!
I have a fresh flow for my kitties and Wickett still dips his paw in the water. Also, I'm really bad about re-filling the water but my pump makes this awful sound when the water is low thats impossible to ignore so that serves as my reminder.Originally Posted by SalemWitchChild
Well I thought maybe he was trying to get more out at first. But it was full last night and he was still doing it so I don't think that's it. Maybe it is the moving water thing? He likes to drink out of the bath tub too. I've been thinking about getting the fountain but I'm afraid I may forget to fill it up and burn up the motor. I'm known to forget those little things and then my mother comes along and fills it up for them. I'm always rushing in the mornings so more often than not she feeds and waters for me... Aren't mothers great.
o man I always wonder about that too, Bella and Stormie do it occasionally and my grandma says her cat LB has started this with his food and water and I told her some cats are like that half the time my stormie eats with her paw
its just cats being cats i guess
Yeah, I've read this too, I'm sure that is the reason. My cats also paw the water- its so cute!
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2003
- Messages
- 3,311
- Purraise
- 138
I was wondering that as well. Kuce would dip her paw into the water bowl. I thought it was something she picked up from her mother. *shrugs*.
Though I don't have any explanation for it, Evie does that too sometimes. I always thought she was just playing (it's too boring to drink the normal way!) because she will actually sit outside her cage and reach in through the bars to dip her paw in the water and then lick her paw. Either that or she doesn't want to go inside her cage!
Very interesting theories, though! I love listening to (reading?) all the knowledge on this site!!
Very interesting theories, though! I love listening to (reading?) all the knowledge on this site!!
An old cat of mine used to do this. I always thought it went back to their wild days when they had to 'fish' out of a stream!!
Torty is another paw dipper. Palekana will actually move the bowl so that the surface of the water will move. The others drink water "normally".
I agree with the theory that they do it in order to see the water level.
Daisy dips her paw into the water bowl also. She then shakes the water off and goes about drinking it. Sometimes she will even just dip her paw and licks her paw as her source of water. Not exactly sure why she does that. I just started to see my other cat do the same. COPY CAT!!
Juno plays in her water, she drops toys in it also. But she drinks out of it. I put her bowl of food and water on a cookie sheet to stop the water from being on the floor. My other kittie Sweetie only drinks from the sink, go figure.
DH & I agree with this theory. Ben seems to only drink the water when it is high and on the edge only. He never drinks in the middle. DH also noticed that it takes him awhile to notice the running water in the sink. Maybe it has to do with depth perception? Ben is 7 months old now.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #20
I just put more water down for them and Puff has made my floor all wet! I think he doesn't like it completely full. He kept pawing till he had a lot of it out. I put a little thing in there that floats and that seemed to help a bit... So I think it is a problem of him seeing the water.
