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Does anyone have a cat water fountain and how do your cats like it?

post #1 of 19
6/4/08 at 4:33pm
Thread Starter 
Does anyone have a cat water fountain and how do your cats like it? I want to get one but i have finky cats so i am worried they may not use it or like it.

Also can you hear the water fountain making some electric buzzing noise

Also is there one that u can hook to the pumbling so u do not have to fill it
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post #2 of 19
6/4/08 at 4:43pm
I have a water dispenser rather than a fountain. So you just fill up the top jug, and turn it upside down and put it on a base. It doesn't filter or anything (which I don't think is necessary), but it's quiet and the kitties stay well hydrated. In this warmer weather we have to keep an eye on it though, as it tends to dry out faster.

It would be good to have it hooked up to the plumbing!
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post #3 of 19
6/4/08 at 5:55pm
My cats love their water fountain. I have tried 3 different types: Petmate, Cat It and Drinkwell. They like the Drinkwell best as it has the highest spout and my Oliver likes to put his face right in the stream of water They also liked the Petmate but weren't as crazy about the CatIt. You can buy a separate reservoir for the Drinkwell so that you don't have to fill it as often. I find the sound of running water somewhat soothing, it took a little getting used to but I don't even notice it now. There certainly isn't a loud electrical noise, the water sound drowns it out (no pun intended ) It was one of the best things I ever bought for them, they drink so much water now.
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post #4 of 19
6/4/08 at 5:59pm
Ditto for me on the Drinkwell - I have the Platinum and it's been a big hit in my house.
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post #5 of 19
6/4/08 at 6:28pm
I have tried ALL the fountains - Drinkwell, Petmate, the dome-looking one (I forget what it's called) and my cats love them all, but they are such a HUGE pain in the butt to clean out! Plus you have to buy filters for them all the time. I'm just not a fan. Then I discovered The Bubbler. It's not really a "fountain" in the technical sense, but it has the same effect of encouraging cats to drink and keeping the water fresh and oxygenated. It simply bubbles air through the water. So there are no filters to buy and no complex parts to keep clean - just a dish and a reservoir, pretty much. My cats and I it.
http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Bubbler-.../dp/B000GZ39H0
It is now made by Petmate, but it was made by a different company at the time I bought mine (a couple years ago). However, when I needed a new tubing assembly because the tubing in mine broke, I called Petmate and they sent a new one out, free of charge, no questions asked. Big thumbs up for Petmate customer service!
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post #6 of 19
6/4/08 at 7:19pm
Does anyone have a cat water fountain and how do your cats like it? I want to get one but i have finky cats so i am worried they may not use it or like it.
I have the CatIt. My cats love it, it breaks about every five months or so but its worth the hassle. (It still works, just gets hard to open).

Also can you hear the water fountain making some electric buzzing noise Yes you can hear the pump, they are made to get noisy if the water gets low so when it is full its very quiet.

Also is there one that u can hook to the pumbling so u do not have to fill it
Nope.
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post #7 of 19
6/4/08 at 7:40pm
I bought a Pet Mate last month. Abby drinks from it, but Chynna won't go near it

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA280_.jpg

It's very quiet. It holds 1.5 litres of water. I have to refill the dispenser every couple of days though because it's been warm and the water evaporates.

It's very easy to clean, at least so far. I just unplug it, take it to the sink and dump out the water. Give the filter a rinse and rinse out the area where the water goes. Refill and plug back in.

The only thing I wish that it did was to cool the water.

The PetMate filters the water. Filtering helps to keep hard water deposits such as lime scale and rust from accumulating on the unit. That's the only benefit of filtering that I can think of.
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post #8 of 19
6/4/08 at 7:54pm
I've tried the following:

Cat-It - my cats tipped the dome off & I had soaked carpet
Drinkwell - by far the favorite here, cats a bit scared at first, but choose drinkwell over faucet now!
Petmate Fresh Flow - noisier, IMO, and not as easy to clean...got a new one & I just don't like it as much
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post #9 of 19
6/4/08 at 10:33pm
Mine have a Petmate Deluxe and a Cat-It. Both are very quiet, though I think the Petmate is the quietest.

I find both are easy to clean. I don't use the filters, I just fill them with filtered water.
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post #10 of 19
6/5/08 at 3:36am
I bought the Petmate a few weeks ago and mine love it!. You can just hear a slight humming noise, but i mean "slight". Rosie snores louder

As for cleaning it i just empty it into a large bowl and give it a good wipe before i put fresh water in
Quote:
Originally Posted by Natalie_ca View Post
The only thing I wish that it did was to cool the water.
The water in mine is lovely and cool?
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post #11 of 19
6/5/08 at 4:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rosiemac View Post
The water in mine is lovely and cool?
I find because it's always moving it keeps the water cool, even with the hot weather we have here the water is cool.
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post #12 of 19
6/5/08 at 5:07am
My two have had the Cat-it (the dome one) and the Drinkwell. They loved both of them. I love the Drinkwell because it has a bigger capacity and it is easier to clean.

I bought a back up Petmate (got it for $10 at the odd lots store), so I might try that one at some point too...

Stan is a much bigger fan of it than Bella, but she likes her food all mushy and watered down, so she's getting her fluids too It took them about a week to really get used to it, the first few days they stared, then played with the water, then began to drink.
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post #13 of 19
6/5/08 at 8:15am
We have a Drinkwell fountain right now. We've tried them all, and by far this is the cats' favorite. It is also my favorite because it's the easiest to clean and has a superior motor. Our Petmate had the motor burn out. I just plain hated cleaning the CatIt. And we had a cheapie fountain from Collections Etc for a while, it was kind of a knock off of the Drinkwell, so that was how I decided to buy a Drinkwell fountain.

The Drinkwell can be run without the filters. I use filtered water (Pur Pitcher) and wash it out weekly. It stays cleaner this way, I think, than when I used the filters (which are $$$$ when I'm trying to pinch pennies on a student budget). I picked up a baby bottle brush from Walmart that has 2 bottle brushes in one. So for $3 I picked up cleaning brushes. Every few weeks I do soak the fountain in bleach water, and that helps keep it really clean for the cats. Just make sure to rinse thoroughly if you do that.
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post #14 of 19
6/5/08 at 8:34am
YES!

I had a PetMate but the motor gave out in 6 months plus dust and other things drop into the water. I got a CatIt (domed fountain) and love it. The cats liked both so no issue there. I find the CatIt easy to keep clean personally. It is also quiet until it gets quite low then it makes a humming noise. I'm assuming that's the way it is supposed to be to remind me to clean and refill.

I soak the motor in vinegar about once every 6 weeks to 2 months to get all the lime residue off of it. I use bottled water only, but I still get lime buildup. I find by cleaning it every weekend the build up doesn't get too out of control but put vinegar in the bottom part and in the dome every so often to clean out the lime buildup and then rinse very thoroughly. I use the same vinegar more than one time - I put it back in a jug and mark it "for cleaning appliances".

The cats do drink more so I think it's a great thing to get them a fountain.
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post #15 of 19
6/5/08 at 8:42am
my kitties have a fountain but at the moment theyre using a bowl since i cant remember how to put the fountain back together after ive moved LOL (it was in storage)

it only makes noise when its low on water or it gets a hairball in the filter
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post #16 of 19
6/5/08 at 10:02am
Another vote for the Drinkwell! Our cats love it. We still set out a bowl of water at the other end of the apartment but they rarely drink from that bowl anymore.

Toby loves to play with water and was always pushing his water bowl all over the place and making a huge mess.. luckily the Drinkwell is too heavy for him to do that he just bats at the Drinkwell stream for a little while and gets to drinking. we also put his bed near the fountain and he likes to sit there and watch the water.

And I can't hear it at all! We adjust the stream to the right flow so that it doesn't make any splashing or trickling noise.
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post #17 of 19
6/8/08 at 8:34am
I have the petmate...have had it since ~ christmas.
Noise is very minimal unless 1. it is low on water 2. has hair or gunk stuck in the filter intake.
I find it fairly easy to clean...BUT took some guessing at first to get all the parts back in their places. I dump water out, take apart, wash each component (large base, water container, and inside compartment) with hot water and dish soap, reasseble, and fill... Have never had a problem with the motor to-date, unless there's hair stuck in it.

Downside- It does not filter the water once it goes into the large bowl compartment...SO, if your cat gets hair, food, or, like mine, toys in the bowl, they just sit there until you dump it out and refill/clean it.

I replace the filters about once every 2-3 months and clean out the unit once every 1-2 weeks. I refill about once a day, but that is with 3/4 cats using it.

I got mine quite cheap on amazon.com...$24 I think. It is NOT the delux model though.

Art
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post #18 of 19
6/8/08 at 1:28pm
mine love theirs. i have 3 - 2 freshflows & a drinkwell... altho Pixel's the only one i've seen use the drinkwell. however, she uses it exclusively since i've gotten it.
the other 4 seem to prefer the freshflow.
i'd love it if it would 'hook into the plumbing' but i don't think anyone makes one that is!
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post #19 of 19
6/8/08 at 7:37pm
I had a Pet Mate...Mamma loved it. She would ONLY drink outa a running tap.
Then the toilet was all she would drink from, and I tossed the Pet Mate. And cleaned the toilet EVERYday for her.
The 4 kids drink outa bowels, I change water 3 times a day. It needs to be fresh!!
K.
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