My cat scratches at his water!

[asecretk]

My two dogs and 8 cats all share the same large water bowl. Some of my cats stick their paw in and some don't. I think they are just trying to move it around so they can see it or they are moving it to smell and make sure it is fresh. My cats love fresh water. I fill the large bowl every morning and they all come running as if the half bowl of water that was there from the morning before was rotten and they are dying of thirst

 

[ryveryn]

My cat Sheldon does the same thing. I have done some reading on this and found the following information. When in the wild Cats will not drink water from pools or streams that are near the site where they killed their food.

It very well could be that all of the cats that seem to do this are simply checking if the water is fresh, clean and safe to drink as they deem it to be too close to their food bowls.

Just a theory.

 

[susank521]

I have 2 cats that splash the water before drinking. One does it so he can tell where the water surface is. The other does it because she loves water. She'll splash the water, then put her foot and leg in it while she drinks. What a mess she makes and she dirties the water. We've tried various things, like elevating the water bowls, placing a tray under the bowls, travel bowls with small holes, fountains, etc, but nothing has solved the problem. We found a pet food mat (microfiber or something like that) at Bed, Bath & Beyond which we put under the bowls. It absorbs some of the water from her feet, but we only keep the bowls in the kitchen 1/2 full to hold down on the splashing mess. The best solution we've found is putting a big, stainless steel bowl of water in the shower, which we fill to the brim. It's a little inconvenient for us, taking it in & out anytime you want to shower in there, but it sure holds down on the mess. For some reason, all of the cats seem to prefer drinking out of the bowl in the shower and I think that's what they were after the whole time. Sometimes us humans are slow, but we are trainable!

 

[vadzilla]

Yes, our two balinese cats "test the water"  before drinking too, especially when I just poured fresh water. One of them has a strange fascination with water in general, and is always sitting on the countertop next to the sink, when my wife is washing the dishes, sometimes trying to touch the stream out of the faucet. Strangely enough, its the same cat that absolutely HATES baths... I got plenty of scratches to prove that..