Water thief

My cat Stan is a water thief. Any time anyone has a glass of water, he will notice and meow like crazy because he wants to drink out of it. If you leave your glass of water on the table - beware! It will have little kitty paws in it within 30 seconds.

We provide him with at least two water bowls, and often will give him his own glass of water, but he still wants to sample everyone else's glass!

Also, he likes to drink his water by dipping his paw into it and then licking the water off of his paw. It's cute, but is it normal?

Is this normal behaviour? I feel bad because he acts like he's so thirsty all the time, but then when he gets a new glass of water he'll only take one or two drinks out of it!

IMO this is pretty normal. Your cat is just curious and wants to make sure that whatever water you're drinking isn't better than what's in his bowl.

My cat will occasionally sample drinks by dipping his paw into a glass as well (especially if it's milk!).

Does Stan ever meow for you to turn on the bathroom tap so he can drink from it? If so he just wants fresher tasting water.

I'd say get one of those water reservoir dishes so that his water tastes fresh longer (you may have to look at dog dishes to find one), and if you're using tap water, change that to filtered water or spring water. I use filtered water from a Brita pitcher in my cat's water reservoir and he stopped asking us to turn on the bathroom tap for him. Or if you can afford it and don't mind the occasional cleaning, look into getting a cat water fountain. I bet Stan would love it!

Our cat does this and it drives me crazy...only after he finishes drinking the water, he gently slides it off the table and onto the floor.

Both our mixed-Aby kitties do this with ANY glass of anything that we have out. I agree with the above poster -- they're just making sure that it isn't better than what they've got!

Both of them have mostly stopped doing it after a few noses stuck into wine, beer, hot cocoa (they hate the steam!), soda, etc. We also got them to stop begging food by letting them eat a little salsa... after that they've been suspicious of anything we let them have as a treat! (They love peanut butter though... oddballs.)

Oh gosh yes - this is normal! My husband's family cat, Spike, used to do this all the time whenever we put anything on the table. His favourite was milk, straight from the jug used to heat it up for coffee! Used to drive my mother-in-law crazy.

Our kittens are obsessed with ANYTHING we are consuming. If you put a bowl of cereal or a cup of tea on the table in the morning, they hop straight up to check it out.