What can I give my cat to encourage her to drink?

[WigWamBam]

She has cystitis, and we need to get some fluids into her.

Vet said to try diluted cat milk, but she won't touch the stuff.

She also suggested water drained from a tuna packed in spring water, but we bought the only two cans left in the supermarket and she's had them both.

I have some white fish in the freezer; if I cooked it in some water would that tempt her, d'you think?

I also thought about Bovril but not sure whether that would be too salty.

Any other suggestions? She doesn't normally drink water unless she's desperately thirsty, and won't drink milk.

fishy water sounds good. I wouldn't give her bovril that will make her feel even thirstier I would think. They will sometimes drink water more easily if it has been left to stand for a few hours i.e not fresh water

poor cat.

my cat hates fresh chlorinated water - prefers to drink from muddy puddles. Do you have any rainwater?

Rainwater - yes, we do have some rainwater. Might try her with some of that.

She doesn't seem to mind the chlorine smell; when she does drink water, she steals mine from a freshly poured glass!

I suspected Bovril would be too salty - I just thought that maybe the smell would tempt her to try. Might give it a miss.

Thank you. Am off to boil some fish!

how about adding water to her feed? cats prefer to eat their fluids, rather than drink them.

Rainwater is a great idea.
Our cat is nearly 16, and has never drunk water out of her bowl - always from outside.

Our cats liked running water. If you left a tap dripping they'd get in the basin/sink and lap it from the spout. Cats are weird.

That's a thought, Duchess; she sometimes drinks from the tap. She also quite likes to drink hot water from a full bath with someone wallowing in it (go figure).

Colditz - that's interesting. Might explain why she doesn't drink a lot otherwise. I'll try that too.

Thanks!

Hmm. The fishy water went down like a lead balloon; she's just wailing because she wants the fish.

Might try putting some of the fish into the saucer of water, see if she'll take any of the liquid along with the fish.

I'm glad it's not just my cat that's weird then. Mine leaps into the bath and laps up the remains of the shower water.

My mums cat will only drink rainwater from a glass bowl or outside from puddles.

I asked my cat and she said
Meeeeoooow, brrrrrrrpppp, meooow

maybe your cat can decipher that and will now drink the fishy water
on he other hand my cat maybe saying something very rude

There's quite an amount of meowww burrp mreow going on here too, Ecmo ... she's had a little of the water with her fish and then stolen the rest of the fish from the work top. I suspect she's feeling a bit better than she was last night ...

Cats are all weird.

Some cats like bottled water (snobs!) and others prefer moving water. You can buy a water fountain thing for cats from some of the bigger pet stores, or probably online too.
If you have moist cat food at home just mix some extra water in with that though. It will be the easiest way of getting the water into her overall. Otherwise you could try cotton wool balls soaked in water and just trying to get her to sip a bit from that as you gently squeeze it on her mouth, but that depends a lot on how stressed she is and you and is not a good idea for some cats - only you will know that.

She gets very stressed, and being stressed makes her ill - she is a calicivirus carrier and stress brings on a flare-up.

She was licking water from my hand last night, but wouldn't stick her nose in the glass for it (strange creature won't drink from a bowl or saucer ).

She seems OK this morning - although I haven't seen her wee since we took her to the vets when she couldn't. Her tummy isn't distended or sore though so I assume she's going outside rather than in her tray.

The vet has suggested this could be the start of an ongoing thing though, so I will bear all of your suggestions in mind for the next time!

Thank you

You could try getting some dried catnip and brewing a herbal 'tea' for your cat, allow it to go cold before giving it!!!

Our cat had this. We diluted his food - he seemed quite happy with this.

Having seen what the catnip did to her when we tried to grow some, I suspect that making tea from it would be a bit like supplying her with kitty marijuana!

She's been taking the diluted food OK ... problem is that having had fish yesterday, she doesn't want to slum it by eating Felix! She does seem quite a bit better, so something must be working. The vet reckons we need to keep this up for a week to stop it coming back

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