Drinking Water or Bath Water?

I have two cats - the younger male likes to put his paws in their bowl of drinking water. I think this deters my female from drinking out of it - she basically makes me empty the bowl and watches me re-fill it before she will drink from it.

Why does he do this? If I add another bowl of water I think he'll just do the same with both.

I have heard the reason they do that is they know moving water is fresh water. But I think mine does it because they can't see the water very good (cats can't see anything right under their noses) so if they ripple it they can see how far they have to go down.

Riley always "checks" his water bowl with his paw before he drinks it. I think its like the above poster said, they can't see it very well unless its moving.

they know moving water is fresh water???

emm, i don,t know this before.

Some kitties simply prefer fresh water. Maia is one of them, she prefers to drink out of my water glass and I actually leave a glass of water out for her. It makes me laugh, I always think of the movie Signs........."there contaminated, they have amoebas". She has glasses of water all over the house and she wants fresh water . The paw dipping is actually a very natural instinct, they often grow out of it.

Coco, my mum's 17 y/o cat puts her paw in the water & swirls it around b4 taking a drink. It's something that my mum has only noticed in the last year. She thinks its so funny & has tried to take a photo but she's too slow getting the camera.