Why won't the cats drink out of their water bowl

[shandyleer]

All three of our moggies (mother and 2 sons) refuse to drink out of their water bowl. I've tried using different bowls, different temperature water and always give fresh water twice daily. Instead I catch them drinking out of dripping taps, the toilet (yuk), the jug of water I use to refill the iron with etc. Anyone know why?

running water is def the preferred option, stealing is 2nd best, water bowl is only for when absolutely desperate and dying from dehyrdation.

have no idea why though......

I have absolutely no idea, but my moggie did this too, only in the past few weeks (she's 12) has she started drinking out of a bowl and I think its only because she's eating a lot more dried food now.

They're fussy buggers are Cats and I think they just like to do things their way!

Is it quite common cat behaviour then? I've had a few cats over the years but not come across this before.

I think it is yeah, I've had 5 cats in my lifetime and they've all definitely favourite drinking from a dripping tap over their water bowls.

favourite favoured

Animals have good evolutionary reasons for preferring running water, it's more likely to be clean than standing water. Add that to the contrary nature of your average mog ... fortunately mine WILL drink from their bowls, but are very partial to dripping taps, glasses of water, the washing up bowl, etc. If it really gets to be a problem those sort of pet water fountain things are supposed to help.

neither of mine drink from their bowl. one was licking a frozen puddle this morning despite me just refilling their water bowl.

We've had different cats, not one has used their water bowl!

yep, they prefer running water. THey dont like it once it has sat around for too long.

I also read that you should never use cleaning detergent around the area where they drink as that puts them off.

Funny buggers, all three of ours.

One of ours has now stopped eating cat food and only eats the dog biscuits.

And the dog is getting partial to the cat food.

My cat prefers to drink fetid water from puddles in the garden rather than her changed daily bowl of fresh water.

Fussy minx.

My old cat would nt ever under any circumstances drink fresh clean tap water.
Only during a hot summer when there was no puddles or minging dirty water outside would she lower herself to drink clean water out her bowl and even then she would dirty it up with bits of food first.

No idea why the otehr cat would drink it fine, did often wonder though if it was too chemically for her because often you could smell the chrorine in it but she loved a good dirty puddle though.

sorry that should be 4 cats

yes same here ours preferred the manky puddles too.

Current boy cat has a particular meow for "come here and turn the kitchen tap on for me" and we of course stupidly oblige as fast as possible.

Lol, aren't we a bunch of mugs!

cats don't like their water bowl to be next to their food bowl either, or so i read in a cat book recently
i moved our bowls apart and now they happily drink out of it, but still lick the tap too, durty gammers!!

cats is cats. Don;t even try to suss em out.

Thanks for answers, I'll give up obsessing over which bowl to put their water in next then! It is quite funny to watch them jumping into the shower after someone's just got out to drink the dregs I suppose ....

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww lol

I'm going to try moving the water bowl, will report back in a few days and let you know if it makes a difference. Girl cat doesn't drink out of the tap as she is too petite to reach properly!

Just forget the water bowl, have shallow bowls on window sills, mugs in corners, leave the tap dripping into a basin. A small decorative water feature indoors or out.

Have just wiped a load of dirty paw prints off the toilet seat where they've obviously been balancing over and having a slurp [vom] Don't know whether it's a good or a bad thing that I hadn't just cleaned it!!

Now interestingly, our cat will happily drink from the dog's water bowl (possibly because it pisses him off?) or (I think) from her small bowl (but that is usually empty because the dog has drunk it).
The dog, however, will not drink from his own large bowl unless desperate - he will drink only from the small cat sized bowl or from puddles etc.

I always thought mine preferred fullish glasses because they didn't have to lean as far to drink?

Our first cat was a proper moggy (not a pedigree like the others) he never drink tap water that I can recall, manky puddles all the way - even the one in the car park with oil in it!

Ours wouldn't drink water from a bowl. However, first thing in the morning when we unlocked the cat flap they'd make a beeline for the fish pond and happily drink from that.

I got as far as putting some fish flakes in filtered water in their water bowls but, no, they still preferred the fish pond water, or occasionally rainwater in the bases of the outdoor plant pots.

As far as cats are concerned, it's just best to go with the flow because they'll do whatever they want to do anyway.

I'd read that cats don't like to get their whiskers wet, or put them inside a container, so to always keep the water bowls well topped up ... this is all very well, but doesn't explain why they are more than happy to poke their entire heads inside our bedside water glasses, invariably knocking them over in the process ...

NB between my last post and this one, the cats have been in the bath, mopping up the leftovers from DD's shower.