Any benefit to cat fountains?

Is there any benefit to a cat fountain? I have a boy who is having urinary issues.

Absolutely a benefit. I have always had water fountains for my multiple cats and none of my babies have ever had urinary issues. I even provide them in my foster rooms.
 

It's funny, we have two cats one male, one female. The female isn't overly picky about where she gets her water from but our male is a different story. My wife when she's getting ready in the morning would let him into the bathroom while she was doing her make-up and what not. He would jump up on the counter to be near her and she started turning on the tap for him. Then we noticed that he had stopped drinking from the water dispenser (the kind with a water reservoir and a bowl at the bottom) all together ! The only water he would drink was from a running tap. I visited my sister one weekend and saw the water fountain that she had purchased for their dog and thought hey I'll bet he'll drink from that! Guess what, he loves it. It's funny to watch though because he'll sit there and catch the water as it's coming out where as our female only drinks from the bowl area.
 

Go water fountains!

I bought one with Cookie and she is absolutely obsessed with it. She drinks, plays in it, and sometimes even tries to bathe in it. :lol3:

For those of you using fountains, what brand/model are you using?

Drinkwell Platinum here...

I forget which brand mine is, but it's from Walmart, the only one they had.

I found it does indeed get cats more interested in drinking.

One suggestion I have is, if you're going to put it in an area where a little "tinkling" noise won't bother you,

I'd get the ones that have the water falling to make a sound, rather than the models that are designed to be quiet.

I say that because, I too have a cat that is attracted to the falling stream of the fountain, not just that it is aerated water.

They see it and hear it more, notice it from across the room- "hey I need to check that out again"!

The models that are quiet have the stream glide down a plastic slide, rather than free-falling like a faucet would.

But if you are going to put one in your bedroom and want to sleep without distraction yourself, or accidentally cause you to wet the bed,

I guess quiet is in order.

Then again, some people intentionally buy those noise recordings to help them sleep - falling rain, amazon noises, city traffic .... !

I really believe if Emily drank from a water fountain, she would have lived longer and died differently. Why? Because she refused to eat wet food and only drank fresh water. Unfortunately, where she lived, I had no outlet to plug it into. where the food bowl was. Moving the food bowl was not an option because Emily would not eat if I did that. If I could do it all over again, I would have bought the Drinkwell 360 in stainless steel.

My male had uriniary problems. We went to the special food and the water fountain..I guess it works. As it turns out my cat continued to grow crystals and he had surgery about a month ago. It turned out he had abnormality in his bladder. It was repaired and we are good

Drinkwell 360 stainless.  My boy had struvite crystals and is a big fan of dry food (got him as an adult - I think he doesn't believe wet food is food.  I've noticed both cats really enjoy drinking from fountains, more than from bowls.  BTW, if you get a Drinkwell 360, you can purchase an after market filter on Amazon that you fill with charcoal yourself - I found it to be a money saver over time.
It's a big investment at first, but for me well worth it.  Good luck!

I wish most of them were steel instead of plastic. The material limits your choices to less than five, so be prepared to spend a lot of money.

My cats show more interest in playing with the water then drinking it so I rehomed it  No idea what brand it was.  I got feed pans down now that hold safely 1.5 gallons. They can still play and put a foot on edge.  Seems to work fine as not much water on floor and it goes down fast so they are drinking it.
 

catsallaround said:

My cats show more interest in playing with the water then drinking it so I rehomed it  No idea what brand it was.  I got feed pans down now that hold safely 1.5 gallons. They can still play and put a foot on edge.  Seems to work fine as not much water on floor and it goes down fast so they are drinking it.
 

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Cats are silly that way. It must have been cute to look at.

No fountain was necessary for Emily. She drank with her paw.

brillobee said:

Is there any benefit to a cat fountain? I have a boy who is having urinary issues.

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A total benefit here!  I have one for the 4 cats and one for the 2 dogs.  2 of the cats love messing with it and drink from it and the other 2 are fascinated with it.  They sit and watch it before drinking out of it.  A great benefit especially if you're feeding an all kibble diet because I think it helps get the cat interested in the water and they will drink more.  I love mine!

Emily - I chuckled at reading your cat drinks with her paw.

My one fella has dunked his paw and licked, then repeat - dunk-lick-dunk-lick ...

since he was a little kitten.

I joke that he must be of italian descent, coming from a long deep line of cats who must have observed italianos

dunking their bread pieces in their tomato sauce at the end of a meal.

Buoni spuntini!

I should take note if he's consistently right or left handed. 

Maybe he's a "south paw" .  Get it? 

4catsNcounting said:

Emily - I chuckled at reading your cat drinks with her paw.

My one fella has dunked his paw and licked, then repeat - dunk-lick-dunk-lick ... since he was a little kitten.

I joke that he must be of italian descent, coming from a long deep line of cats who must have observed italianos

dunking their bread pieces in their tomato sauce at the end of a meal.

Buoni spuntini!

I should take note if he's consistently right or left handed. 

Maybe he's a "south paw." Get it? 

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Sadly, today marks six years since my paw licker died.

She was born right-pawed. At age two, she accidentally got outside and was bitten by an animal. The wound became infected and hurt. Since then, she used her left paw to drink.

I read most cats are southpaws, especially tomcats.

Nationailiy has nothing to do with it. Emily was 100% American shorthair.

My little guy will stick his nose up at any sitting water.  Once he started begging for the toilet to be flushed I got him 2 of the drinkwell fountains and he loves them. 

He just had his yearly checkup and everything looked great.

Proof is in the litterbox   His "urine spheres" are almost tennis ball sized so I would say he is well hydrated and happy.

After reading so much on this site about kidney problems and crystals I figured it was a good investment.

Just put some towels around it when you first bring it home, it was more of a toy for him to bat the water stream than anything for the first week.
 

I learned the (very) hard way how important a water fountain is. Emily definitely would have drunk a lot more water if she had one.

Aha.

Just looked at mine since it needs cleaning,

and it is a FreshFlow Petmate, again - from Walmart.

So although I whole-heartedly recommend having a fountain for cats, I'd opt for one that has a free drop to the stream and makes a bit of waterfall noise, not this one.

Unless of course you need it to be super quiet - then I would recommend it for that reason alone. 

Another important note: If your cat is old and has never seen one before, it might refuse to drink just because it is different. I bought the gravity style waterers just because Mom was unwilling to have a cord and a pump after reading negative reviews on Amazon. Patricia acted like the water itself was different. She always washes down treats, but did not even do that when all she had was a waterer. It took one day to realize I should have bought the 8 ounce ceramic cat bowls I fell in love with.

Of course, the next time I adopt a kitten, an electric water fountain will be in my kitchen before the cat is. No more risking the chance my cat will suffer kidney failure because it hated stale water.