Hi there, I am the owner of currently three cats and two water fountains.
I have never had a water fountain before, although I've known some cats that prefer to drink from a running tap.
The reason I have these water fountains is because I got them second hand, cheap. I cleaned them extremely well.
The one does not have a brand on it, but the water shoots upward a little bit, they don't like that one very much.
The other one is a drinkwell brand, and the water flows downward like a running tap. There are a lot of drinkwell pet fountain models out there, I'm not sure of the model, it's an older one, probably 8 years old at least?
The pros are that it's extremely quiet,.
And after a day of my cat's exploring it, looking at it with curiosity and suspicion, batting at the water with their paws and trying to bite the water, they got used to it and they all prefer the drinkwell fountain (although during the time they were getting used to it as well as now I still have a regular still bowl of water for them)
I can't be certain that this encourages them to drink more, but anything that encourages your cat to drink more is a bonus because cats are known for not drinking enough and that leads to all kinds of health problems.
The cons well, this is going to sound like more cons than pros, but I'm trying to be honest.
So you have to have a power source, or I suppose you can have an extension cord? And it's not always easy to know exactly where you going to put this thing. You have to remember that you might accidentally kick it and it might spill so it has to be somewhere where that's not a problem.
I took a boot tray, (the kind you would put your winter boots on) and I put that underneath the fountain because if something happens, and the reservoir (which I think holds 1L), empties, then you're going to have a lot of water on the floor. This has happened a couple of times, if you do not properly screw on the plastic floating water measuring part I'm sorry I'm not using the right word... On to the water reservoir, and the gravity level which normally keeps the float from emptying too much water all at once, if it gets screwed up and stuck open, then it's just going to keep empty until it overflows hence why you need to have it in a boot tray or something like that.
It does need to be cleaned, and unlike a plain bowl, it's a lot more complicated to clean. I actually just cleaned mine today. It involves unplugging it, carefully carrying it over to my sink, taking it apart, washing scrubbing cleaning each plastic part individually, changing the filter, and putting it back together again. This sounds like it would take forever and the first few times I did it, it was a huge chore, but now that I'm used to it, I can have it completely cleaned in approximately 15 minutes. It used to take me at least 30.
The cleaning process: I prefer to use hot water, baking soda, and good old fashioned elbow grease as opposed to using dish soap, or some other type of cleanser because I don't want to leave any type of residue. And you're going to have a lot of biofilm because it has mostly plastic parts, and it's not like you clean it every single day, so there is going to be some slimy residue building up.
What else? You have to buy filters for some of them, they're not terribly expensive, I like to buy them in bulk, the ones that I buy look a little bit like a flat almost rectangular wedge, white on one side black on the other, and I bought a package of 20 because it was less expensive per unit then buying a three pack.
I reuse the filters, I soak them in boiling water, I give them a manual scrubbing, I hang them up dry them out and a few months later will reuse that one, I have a rotation of slightly used filters, the same way that one might reuse a tea bag once or twice.
But not every single model is the same, some of them may not have that type of filter some of them might have a filter that is easier to clean, some of them might have a totally different design. I don't think I would recommend a battery operated one because don't forget that this thing is running 24 hours a day 7 days a week every single day. I'm not sure how much power they use but I'm sure it's not much. But if it was battery operated, it would be.
Mine has been running just guessing for at least 7 years, 24 hours a day, and the pump has not given me any trouble yet.
(Edited a spelling mistake)
Hope this helps