Cat drinking from tap

[AlexaAmbidextra]

My cat has recently decided she wants to drink from the bathroom tap. As she liked running water I bought her a fountain which she has pretty much ignored. She also has a water bowl both upstairs and downstairs. She scratches at the bathroom door several times a day and sometimes in the night so I let her in and turn on the tap. Sometimes she’ll drink for ages as though she’s really thirsty.

My dilemma is, I’m now not sure whether the bathroom tap is her only source of water so I have to keep letting her in there. I don’t see her drinking from her fountain or bowls and I’m not convinced the water levels in them are going down enough to indicate that she’s using them.

I worry that if she is using only the bathroom tap then letting her in there two or three times a day isn’t enough for her. Do you think if she’s thirsty enough she’ll drink from her bowls or fountain if I’m not around to let her in the bathroom or will she just refuse and therefore dehydrate?

She'll drink if she needs it. My dcat loves nothing more than drinking from my bath, while I'm lying in it! 😂 I only have a bath every 3 or 4 days (showers in between) but I know she isn't going 4 days without drinking, she'll use her water bowl when she has to. A cat would never go thirsty with a full bowl of water in the house.

Mine pretends not to use her fountain but I've caught her doing it and now refuse to put the tap on for her!

She's a house cat and I found cat litter in the sink - ew. I never gave her water from the tap again!

Thanks. You’ve reassured me. She’s just being a spoilt madam. 😹

My cat would only drink from the taps, or from a manky plant pot outside in the garden. Never, ever from a bowl on the floor, though when he was younger he'd occasionally drink out of one if we left it on the draining board.
We tried a water fountain, but no. When he was a kitten, we ended up fastening one of those big spouted water bottles for rabbits on to the wall, and he'd lap water out of the spout.

Basically we just had to keep the manky plant pot filled up, and he'd drink from the taps morning and evening when I brushed my teeth.

My cat is exactly the same! Ignores all and any fresh water in bowls around the place, insists on the bath tap being on a tiny bit to drink from.

I've started putting the plug in and leaving a tiny puddle for him to drink out of during the day....

It's ridiculous.

My parents cat drinks from the bathroom tap. He stands on the sink and yowls till they come and turn it on for him.

How old is your cat? Has their thirst increased recently? If the cat is older and this is recent, please take them to the vet.

My old boy used to like drinking from a tap.

As previous OP has said, I'd be concerned if you've got a middle aged/senior cat whose just started to do this. Increased drinking habits are a sign of kidney disease (my boy never drank from his bowl until six months before we lost him).

Thanks for all your responses. She’s only three so I wouldn’t have thought renal issues. I’ll mention it though next time we’re at the vet for jabs. I think she’s just a demanding minx basically. 😹

I would also say a trip to the vet. Tap drinking is connected to various problems

That’s how they diagnosed diabetes in my cat.

Sev, too, he has a kind of drinking schedule:
bath tup tap, bidet tap, shower after it has been rinsed, bowl 1 on the terasse, bowl 2 on the terasse, every other surface water might collect on (he checks), bowl next to his food.
He is perfectly healthy.
He also likes to go out into the rain, get wet and come in for cuddles afterwards