How to get my cat to drink more water or eat wet food

Hi. I have 1.9 year old cat and a 6 month old kitten. The kitten has urinary crystals, is on prescription diet c/d with added water (thank you catsite people for this tip) and she seems to be doing well.

Although I don't know if my older cat has any problems with his urinary tract I do know he's always had problems going number 2 because he's often constipated. I want to give him more fluids by having him eat some wet food but he won't touch anything but hard food - not even tuna!! Please give me some advice of ways to get more fluids in my cats diet. I've tried adding water to his hard food - no luck - tuna, chicken, butter - nope, nothing I've tried has worked.

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drmroth said:

Hi. I have 1.9 year old cat and a 6 month old kitten. The kitten has urinary crystals, is on prescription diet c/d with added water (thank you catsite people for this tip) and she seems to be doing well.

Although I don't know if my older cat has any problems with his urinary tract I do know he's always had problems going number 2 because he's often constipated. I want to give him more fluids by having him eat some wet food but he won't touch anything but hard food - not even tuna!! Please give me some advice of ways to get more fluids in my cats diet. I've tried adding water to his hard food - no luck - tuna, chicken, butter - nope, nothing I've tried has worked.

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You might want to try a cat fountain. My kibble happy cat has a fountain for his water and he drinks it all the time. He also has started eating wet food since his sisters eat it and he is a competitive eater. 

It's totally possible to transition a stubborn kibble addict to wet food, but it takes time and patients and some tricks. The first rule is that you have stop free feeding kibble and move to timed meals. A cat that isn't hungry isn't going to touch wet food. The second thing is you have to try lots of different wet foods with different flavors/textures until you find something that works. Use treats as a tool to entice your cat to eat. Here's a good article about transitioning to wet (or raw) foods. I transitioned my (at the time) 12 year old cat from free fed kibble to raw food, so anything is possible. I also transitioned a very stubborn kibble addicted Bengal to 100% wet food.

http://catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf

My Blue/White kitten, 6 weeks old when we had her, and now a shaggy 1 year, 10 months adult (Sukie) has only once been known to drink.  She lives on Felix pouches  and my vet advised me that cats rarely drink.  My previous Siamese male drank so regularly from my bedside water glass that we gave him his own glass and he drank every night, ever since we first had him  However he died of kidney failure aged 14 and the drinking may have been the first sign of this, but we had him from the shelter at 1 year - and 13 years is rather a long time to live with kidney failure....

Sukie enjoys dry biscuits as well as the Felix pouches and still does not seem to need to drink, even at the height of the Australian summer, although we always leave a glass of water for her. 

I am a human doctor, not a vet, and any advice that I give you about cats should be checked with a vet.  However it appears to me, after a long adult lifetime of owning cats, or being owned by them, that some drink and others don't need to. 

Sukie, by the way, refused any food except Felix brand.  The lady was not for turning and we had to give in to her tastes.  Some cats eat any cat food, others don't.  Happily the local Woolworths stocked Felix kitten and adult food. 

Try giving your cat different brands, or raw food as advised by @missminz.  You may have to be patient, but if your kitten won't drink and has crystals you should discuss the problem further with your vet as 6 months is rather young to have crystals.

I use "Cat Lax" for feline constipation, some cats like it but you can put it on their front paws if they won't eat from your finger.  It is readily available on line at "Dr Carl's" website.  Google 'Dr Carl" for the full address.

With all best wishes,

Geoffrey

Thank you so much! I'm so happy to have joined this forum.

What an adorable little floof.

As G Geoffrey said feed on a schedule and hide a bit of wet in the dry. Try every different texture and flavour you can and don't force it.

There are four cats in my house and it's taken months to work out how to keep everyone happy with their foibles

As are your love bugs[emoji]128522[/emoji]

I make plain steamed chicken breasts to cut up for cat treats, and they LOVE the water afterwards (once it has cooled, of course) because the chicken fat and flavour has dripped into it making a weak broth. People also suggest using tuna juice in water.

BTW- great site about feline digestive issues:

http://www.felineconstipation.org

I'

Pegleg said:

What an adorable little floof.

As G Geoffrey said feed on a schedule and hide a bit of wet in the dry. Try every different texture and flavour you can and don't force it.

There are four cats in my house and it's taken months to work out how to keep everyone happy with their foibles

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drmroth said:

Hi. I have 1.9 year old cat and a 6 month old kitten. The kitten has urinary crystals, is on prescription diet c/d with added water (thank you catsite people for this tip) and she seems to be doing well.

Although I don't know if my older cat has any problems with his urinary tract I do know he's always had problems going number 2 because he's often constipated. I want to give him more fluids by having him eat some wet food but he won't touch anything but hard food - not even tuna!! Please give me some advice of ways to get more fluids in my cats diet. I've tried adding water to his hard food - no luck - tuna, chicken, butter - nope, nothing I've tried has worked.

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• drmroth
• Dec 16, 2016

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I've never really contributed to this site before so if I screw up the quote process, please forgive my newbie-ness. I have a TNR colony I feed Kirkland kibble & Friskies cans. They eat on paper plates & I plop a generous handful of kibble on each plate, then on top of that, the wet food. In winter (NYC) their water freezes overnight. Of course I bring fresh water every day, but I am always mindful of dehydration or even just thirstyness. So during the coldest days, I often bring 1% milkfat Lactaid milk. This circumvents the lactose intolerance issue & my gang just drinks & drinks. Six cats & I can go thru a quart in 2 days. I also occasionally bring raw chicken livers, a very wet meat, that some of my cats love & others won't touch. But it provides fluids. I too make a crockpot of chicken broth for cats. You load your crockpot with the super cheap chicken thighs (48 cents/lb.), fill with water, add 1 tablespoon of white or cider vinegar (this disappears as the brew cooks, but it dissolves all the collagen in the connective tissue & all the calcium in the bones into the broth), then I put the Crockpot on high & forget it for 20 to 24 hours. DO NOT ADD SALT! Let the brew cool, strain the solids out thru a sieve & set aside. Take much of the abundant fat out, then strain the broth thru cheesecloth & double or even triple its quantity with water. When it cools, it will gel because of the collagen. If u want the meat, pick the bones for urself or pick them & rinse under warm water to remove the fatty debris. Then take each bone & mush it up between your fingers; the bones will be like sand in a sand castle. Mush each bone at a time & toss any small pieces that don't mush up. Add this to the cat broth. Serve warm in a separate bowl or over their wet--or dry--food.

It's simply not so that cats don't drink water. Some drink regularly & lots; others not so much. But kibble cats do tend to drink more water. The idea of a cat fountain is a good one. Also if ur cat is playful, u can put a small crockery bowl in maybe a bathroom sink. Turn on the cold water to drip maybe once a second into the bowl. Gradually the bowl will fill & the cat will hear the dripping & go to investigate. S/he may play with the drip but just may start drinking more water when it is a toy. I had one nondrinker who converted to a real slurper this way.

The commin remedy for a cat with difficulty pooping is a teaspoon of canned pumpkin mixed in with their food (or smeared on a paw). And any hairball remedy like Petromalt (active ingredient petroleum jelly) will facilitate elimination by greasing the digestive tract -- but it cannot be used every day. Pumpkin works by adding fiber, I think, and a little lady I once luved with used to eat grass to move things alon. So I checked out the ASPCA list of cat safe houseplants & got her a Boston fern. And every morning before I fed her she was up on the back of the couch having her early morning salad.

Hooe something here us helpful

My guy won't drink water but he does eat wet food so I just put in about 3cc of water in each feeding. He is an IBD cat so he gets multiple feedings a day and each one has some water and it keeps him just above dehydration according blood tests. Before this I used a syringe and slowly squirted it into his mouth and he had no problems drinking it. Keep working on the wet food and once he is on that it is easy to supplement it with water. You can also try Fancy Feast which is like kitty crack and if he eats that you can use it to get him used to wet food and then transition him to a better brand. I used Fancy Feast to get him on wet food after I adopted him and then transitioned him to prescription food. I bought about 15 different brands/flavours and then tried them until I found one he would eat and went from there. Some cats are sensitive to change so try with small amounts and then work yourself up and then lower the old food until it is gone.

Wow - you guys are awesome. It's so great to see how much we all love our little fur babies.

What also may work is putting water into the hard food to soften it up like you would with kittens. It has the same taste as the food he is used to but is soft which may help the transition or if he will eat it wet then you have won in any case. Their urine output and stools also give you a good idea of how hydrated they are so take a good look at these to see how things are working out.