Water fountains

Otto, all three of mine were already familiar with water fountains when they came into my home, so I never had to introduce them. However, a close friend of mine brought one into a house with a resident senior cat and a kitten. If I remember correctly, she said it took the senior almost a month to start using the fountain.

I agree that making another source of water available is the right thing to do, for obvious reasons. Even my guys, who seem to prefer the fountain, occasionally drink from a stainless steel bowl of still (filtered) water.

As for the reflection: I don't think my cats would be disturbed by that (they don't pay much attention to mirrors, for example), but hey, it can't hurt to try covering it.

Finally, you may have read it yourself, but Hissy mentioned in another thread that she has had success attracting cats to the fountain by placing a pingpong ball in the water.

When I first got a water fountain I didn't have an alternative water source down (I would have put one down if I noticed someone wasn't drinking.) but it literally took less than 24 hours for all of my babies to start using the fountain. They were all fascinated by it.

Holland has just a basic Drinkwell fountain. It's plastic. I just brought it home, filled it up, and let her go for it. She, like many cats, has a fascination with running water so she took to it right away. I didn't have to show her how to use it or anything like that. For a while, I even got their cat-grass snap-ons, which she seemed to like, but they made the water all slimy and she didn't seem to like it enough for me to have to clean the fountain out every other day, so I quit on them.

Holland has also always had two bowlfuls of fresh water besides her fountain, but she seems to prefer to drink out of the fountain. It might be a good idea to tape over that reflective spot, it could definitely be scaring the kids off!

I have cats that like to play in the sink and drink from the faucet, so when I put their first fountain out, those that play in the sink immediately took to it. The others watched and learned, and it wasn't long before everyone was using them.

I have 3 different fountain types that I rotate around to keep them interested, and keep another 3 bowls of water throughout the house in case they don't want to use the fountain.

I never leave my fountains running while I'm away on vacation (fill them with water and unplug them), therefore it is very important to me to keep them interested in other sources of water.

I let it sit there empty for a couple days (some cat nip in it woulda been a good idea)

Then I put water in it, left it unplugged for a few days. I left their "normal" water bowls out next to it, so they got the idea.

Turned it on and moved the water bowls to the other end of the house because they were scared of it. I did leave one water bowl near the fountain, hoping they would get the idea. I did try different things, depending on the cat. For a couple of my cats that were like "um, I am not so sure of that thing" are the ones that I breifly put their foot under the 'water fall.' You could see the look on their face, "wait, that is water?" Then I grabbed some treats (so they would all be there for my "lesson" and sat next to it, and provoked the cats to bat at the stream of water. I stuck my finger under the stream and imitated a cat battig at it. 2-3 of mine actually got it (I had 5 when I got the fountain) and they started batting at the water. lol. Every time one of them got near the fountain I would give them a treat, but I did sucker in and give the slow learners treats anyway. Fountain = good things!

My cats were all on board in about 2-3 weeks. My formal feral took the longest lol. I thought she was never going to use it.

After they got use to it I put one 'regular' bowl next to the fountain so they have options. And its a back up for just in case the fountain leaks/get tipped or whatever.


It sounds like you are doing it all right.


It just takes time.

Callie always liked to drink from the faucet, so she took right to it. With Darko and Stinkpot, I put my fingers in the flowing water while they watched, then put my wet fingers up to their faces and let them sniff and lick them. That's all it took. Sven still hasn't started drinking from it (at least not when I'm watching ). We still have the old water dish right next to the fountain for him, plus other water dishes throughout the house.

Now my issue is, Stinkpot chews on my new bathroom faucets because he thinks they should be constantly running like the fountain!!! And when we DO turn them on, say to brush our teeth, then he gets all excited and really starts chewing on them. We just had them installed about 2 months ago, so I am not a happy camper.

My cats all took to the fountain right away though I did leave one bowl of water down just in case. But it didn't take them long to all be using it. Just recently I introduced a new kitten to the household and he was absolutely fascinated by the fountain. He was too short to reach it at first so I had to put something next to it so he could climb up and reach it lol. But he immediately used it. I also have pugs and they love the fountains too.

3 of my cats took to the fountain right a way. One didn't. We bought this wheat grass packet made to grow in the fountain and that caught his attention right away. Unfortunately he became obsessed with the fountain and started moving all his toys to the basin. This clogged the fountain and made the water gross. The other cats were not happy that their favorite water source became so disgusting and even less happy that their toys were always soggy.

No matter how many times we moved his toys, he continued to relocate them to the fountain. After about a month, we gave up on the fountain.

Moral of the story: Wheat grass might work & be careful what you wish for.

I absolutely hate when they do this.

My cats bat at the water in the bowl with their paws which I have explained to them a thousand times are their litter box paws not their drinking paws!

That is so cute! Slapping the water bowl so the water moves! "Um, the other bowl does it.... Maybe this one is broken?" *tap* *tap* *splash*


Taking it up/putting it back down/ignoring it might work, let us know how that goes.

One more idea, we all know cats are lazy lol. Maybe move her water bowl to another room, this way when she is thirsty from eating the closest water source is the fountain. That might not work though...

We've had the Catit dome fountain for about a year now and all the kitties use it. We even had a bunny that would use it. I think they like to be able to sit more upright and drink rather than stoop over.
Marty

... the little one (1 y.o) loves it, sticks her paws in it and drinks the water off her paws as well as from the stream and bowl.

... the older one (3 y/o) is TERRIFIED of it, runs away in a great fright. Next thing you know there were TWO POOPS waiting for me on a mat she uses to leave me her kitty-love-token (her most favorite toy) for when I return home.

So, I turned it off, placed it on top of the kitty care counter. I've been feeding her water from it in a dropper, and she is OK when it is off, but when on, she is still terrified and angry. Something about the buzzing sound sets her off. I don't know if others have a less scary sound, but so far, that's $70 down the drain.

Where did you get the fountain? Usually Petsmart will take things back (it's nice to have a receipt with the expensive stuff) if kitty doesn't like it.

I was fortunate - mine liked it right away (the 360 even more). My little girl especially likes me to put ice cubes in, so she can make them 'swim'.

If it's really noisy, try setting it on something else...for instance, if it's on a tile floor, try putting a placemat or something under it. Sometimes mine will buzz if it's not completely flat, because we have Saltillo Tile, which isn't smooth. I just move it around until it's quieter. Also, depending on the amount of water in the reservoir (I guess for the weight on the back of the unit), sometimes mine will start to make more noise. I use that as my indicator to add more water, if it's not time to clean it anyway!

I tried to use a water fountain but it didn't work for me.

Nikita wasn't afraid of it once it had been on for a few minutes and she got used to the noise but then she got convinced there was a mouse or something hiding inside it so she started digging around it and she got completely obsessive with digging.

I took a video of it actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWwmwPnfIIo

Anyway she just made a big mess and splashed water everywhere and didn't drink from it so I just turned it on every now and then for her to play with and then it got all yucky with algae so I ended up throwing it away.

You can try a small glass. My cat won't drink water out of a bowl or the fountain I bought. neither would, but Chickster still won't.

Our cats use the fountain as well as the sink,tub and a glass.
What is a real hoot is to throw an ice cube in there and Bubba goes crazy attacking it and splashing water around.Pic of CC in sink.

Hi, it's been sitting (off) on top of the cat care counter getting in their way, so now they just think it is furniture. I'm going to give it another go. What we did is this, we placed it on a towel on top of a mat, which was all on a carpet. So it was snug, and had just loaded it with 4 1/2 bottles of bottled spring water! The noise didn't seem that loud to me, a hum-vibration noise. But you know their ears. It must have been the right frequency to set her off. SO I placed it on top the counter and keep dropper feeding her from it. She's very afraid kitty, and never used to be. She had a horrific run in with a set of bad people October last year, and has not been the same since. That's why we got Soleste NoBaby the Fearless Flamepoint to help her out.

I'll keep at it...

My experience with a fountain was a failure.

It was located next to his regular food and water dishes.


The first week I turned it on and left water in his regular dish. He wouldn't go near the fountain. He looked at it from a distance but would not drink from it. He did drink from his regular dish.

The second week I let the regular dish go dry. He sat next to it and cried till I filled it. I did use the fountain to fill it. Thinking he would make the connection.

The third week I caught him drinking from the toilet. There was water in his dish but apparently the fountain had made a noise that scared him. (I did notice it would occasionally gurgle when the water level adjusted)

He would not drink from his regular dish until I turned the fountain off.

I left the fountain off for a week. I refilled the fountain and turned it back on. Two days later Chester ended up at the emergency vet with a blockage.

They said it could have been caused by stress and asked if anything had changed in the household. The only major change had been the fountain.

I did get it on sale. But it's now in a box looking for a new owner.