If your cat drinks out of the tap, the shower, or your glass, but walks straight past the bowl you filled this morning…
If you've bought a fountain and your cat used it for a week and then stopped…
If your vet has told you your cat needs more water and you have no idea how you're supposed to make that happen…
Then please read this properly. It took me eleven years and one very bad afternoon to work out.
My cat sat in the kitchen sink every morning for eleven years and I thought it was a funny little habit.
It was a complaint.
I'm Susan. I'm 61 and I live outside Leeds.
I'm not a vet and I'm not a writer. I'm just somebody who got something badly wrong for a very long time, and would quite like to save you doing the same.
Eleven years of being the tap
Alfie is twelve. Ginger, enormous, thinks he runs the house.
Every morning before I'd even filled the kettle he'd be up in that sink staring at the tap, waiting for me to turn it on for him.
Six in the morning. Ten at night. Sometimes two in the morning, crying at the bath until I got up and did it.
My daughter said I was his butler. I've got photos of him up there going back years.
And the whole time, his water bowl sat three feet away on the floor. Ceramic. A nice one. Washed every single morning without fail.
Full. Always full.
I didn't think anything of it. Not until a couple of months ago, when somebody finally explained to me what he'd been doing.
The day my heart broke. The appointment.
A couple of months ago the vet did his bloods.
She came back in holding the printout and she didn't sit down. She turned it round on the desk and went through it with the end of her pen.
Early stage chronic kidney disease. His creatinine was up.
She said she was glad I'd brought him in and that there was still time. She wanted him back in six weeks, and she needed a great deal more water going into him before then.
Then she put the pen down and asked me something I wasn't expecting at all.
Susan. Does he drink out of a bowl?
The question I'll never forgetWell of course he does, I said. Ceramic one. I wash it every single morning and fill it right to the top.
She said that's the problem.
I thought she'd misheard me. She hadn't. What she said next is the reason I'm sat here writing this.
Here are the three reasons she explained to me
She talked me through three things that afternoon. I'd owned cats for the best part of thirty years and I didn't know a single one of them.
Reason one: cats will not drink still water if they can avoid it
Cats came from desert animals. Their thirst drive is weak, so they don't top themselves up the way we do, and in the wild they get most of their water out of what they eat.
On top of that they will not drink from still water if they can possibly help it.
Still water in the wild is where things go bad. They are wired to walk past it and go and find something moving.
Which is exactly what he'd been doing. In my sink. For eleven years.
While I stood there and laughed at him.
He wasn't being funny. He was telling me the bowl was no good, and I kept filling it up anyway.
And that was only the first thing she told me. The second one is worse, and I still think about it every time I wash anything.
Reason two: the bowl I washed every morning was never clean
I asked her why he'd happily drink out of the bath, which is filthy, and not out of a bowl I'd scrubbed that morning.
Water that sits still all day doesn't stay the way you poured it.
A bit of him goes in every time he goes near it. Hair. Dust off the floor. Bits of food. It sits there at room temperature and it grows a film on the inside that you cannot see and a sponge cannot reach, because glazed ceramic and plastic both get little scratches in them over the years.
You can feel it if you run a finger round the bottom. That slightly slippery bit you always assumed was just wet.
And then she told me the thing that made all of it make sense.
Alfie's vet
What she told me next
So when he sniffed that bowl and walked away, he wasn't being fussy and he wasn't being dramatic.
He was smelling something I physically could not smell, in a bowl I had just washed, and doing exactly what a cat is built to do about it.
He could smell it. He'd been able to smell it the whole time. I just couldn't.
Then she asked me one more question, and it turned out I'd been making it worse every single morning without knowing.
Reason three: what comes out of your tap
She asked if I filled it straight from the tap.
Of course I do, I said. Where else.
She said tap water is perfectly fine for us, but it carries a chlorine taste that we stop noticing by about the age of five. A cat never stops noticing it.
Every time I topped that bowl up I was refreshing the exact thing he was avoiding.
So there it was. Eleven years of a bowl he was never going to drink from, and eleven years of me topping it up and feeling quite pleased with myself.
I got as far as the car park and then I couldn't drive. Not because of Alfie. Because of somebody else.
Why I sat in the car park and couldn't drive home
Because it had happened before, and I hadn't understood it then either.
We had a little tortoiseshell called Bess before him.
She did exactly the same thing. Sat at the taps. Cried at the bath. Never went near her bowl.
Everyone told me cats are just like that.
She went downhill at fourteen and it was her kidneys, and I sat on the vet's floor and held her and I never once connected any of it to a bowl on my kitchen tiles.
I got home from Alfie's appointment and that bowl was the first thing I saw.
Still full. Same as I'd left it. Same as it had been every day of his life.
And I thought, I am not doing this twice.
Everything I tried first, and why none of it worked
Let me save you the fortnight I wasted.
I changed the water twice a day instead of once. Nothing. Because the film isn't in the water, it's in the bowl.
I bought him a brand new one from the pet shop. Four days. Then back to the sink.
I started adding water to his food. Helps a bit. But he eats twice a day and drinks all day, and there's a limit before he stops eating it.
I left the tap dripping. He loved it. My water bill didn't, and I can't leave it running when I'm out.
Four things. A fortnight. He was still in that sink every morning.
Every one of them is a way of working around the bowl. Not one of them replaces it.
So I sat down that night to sort it out properly. And I very nearly made exactly the same mistake all over again.
So my vet said get him a fountain. She was half right.
I looked up cat fountains that night. One with a little flower on the top, twenty odd pounds, eleven thousand reviews. My finger was on the buy button.
What stopped me was scrolling past the five stars to the ones written six months in.
"Loved it for a week. Won't go near it now."
"Slimy film in the bottom again three days after I scrubbed it."
"Pump died at four months."
"Third one I've bought. She's rejected all three."
Third one. Three fountains, and a cat still not drinking.
Then it clicked, and I felt sick.
They're all plastic. I'd have paid twenty five quid to buy my exact problem again, with a motor in it.
Moving water was only half of what she'd told me. The other half was the scratches, and a plastic fountain has more of them than a bowl does, because there's a pump churning water round them all day.
So I stopped looking at prices and started looking at what they were actually made of. On the whole first page, there were about two that weren't plastic.
One of them is now sat on my kitchen floor, and he hasn't been in the sink since the day I put it there.
Then I finally found the one Alfie loved
It's called KittySip.
Steel the whole way through, not a steel bowl sat on top of a plastic tank, which is what half of them turn out to be when you look underneath.
The first time he took a proper drink from it I stood in my kitchen and cried.
I showed it to my vet at the next appointment. Here's what she said made this one different:
Why she said this was the one
- •It runs like a tap. The thing he'd been asking me for since he was a kitten.
- •Steel, right through. Nothing to scratch, so the film has nowhere to start.
- •The water never sits still. It keeps moving through the filter instead.
- •No taste of the tap. Three layers take it out before he gets to it.
- •Big enough to forget about. I top it up every couple of weeks, not every morning.
- •Nothing left to scrub. Three pieces, ten seconds, steel in the dishwasher.
My dear sweet boy. He looks healthier and happier, and he's drinking more than I've ever seen him drink.
"He hasn't been in that sink since. I have my boy back."
If your cat is already doing what mine did, you don't need the rest of this.
See the fountain I bought50% off today · 4 free filters · 365 day money back guarantee
Now the moment of truth. The recheck.
Six weeks to the day, I put him in the carrier and we went back.
I sat in that same room and I could not look at the printout when she turned it round.
"Whatever you're doing," she said, "keep doing it."
I sat in the car park again afterwards. Different reason this time.
Everything people have asked me since
"How do I know mine will actually use it?"
You don't, and I didn't. Mine circled it for a day and a half and I was ready to send it back. That is exactly why I bought the one with a full year money back guarantee instead of the cheap one. Put it on the floor, leave her old bowl down as well for a bit, and let her decide in her own time. If she never takes to it, you send it back and you've lost nothing but a fortnight.
"Can't I just change the water more often?"
I tried that first. Twice a day for a fortnight. It changed nothing, because the film isn't in the water, it's in the bowl. Fresh water into a scratched bowl is contaminated again within hours, and your cat can smell it long before you'd ever notice.
"Why not just get the cheap plastic one?"
Turn it over first. If the tank underneath is plastic, the water is sitting in plastic, and you have bought the same problem with a motor attached. That's what all those six month reviews are describing. I'd already spent eleven years on a bowl that was quietly the whole issue and I wasn't doing it again to save a few quid.
"Won't wet food sort it out?"
It helps and I'd still do it. But he eats twice a day and drinks all day, and there's a limit to how much water you can get into a pouch before he stops eating the pouch. It wasn't going to get him where the vet needed him.
"Is it noisy? Mine is nervous."
Alfie is a coward and it doesn't bother him at all. The pump sits under the water, so what you hear is the little stream, not a motor. I forget it's on until it needs topping up and goes quiet.
"Am I going to be buying filters forever?"
Four come with it. After that one lasts about a month and they're a few pounds. Nothing signs you up to anything, you just order them when you need them. It's less than I spend on his litter.
"He's twelve and already diagnosed. Is it too late?"
I asked her almost exactly that, in those words, sat in that room. She said the sooner you get more water into them the better, at any age and at any stage, and that hydration is the single thing owners have the most control over. That's all I'm going to say, because I'm not a vet and neither are you. Ask yours. But don't do what I did and wait for a printout to make you ask the question.
So here's the fountain, if you'd rather your girl didn't go through what mine did.
And it's 50% off today
- ✓She'll actually drink from itRuns like a little tap, all day and all night. The moving water is the thing her instinct is looking for.
- ✓No film, no slippery bit at the bottom304 food grade steel through the bowl and the tank, so there's nothing to scratch and nothing for it to grow in.
- ✓No chlorine taste to put her offThree layer filter takes out the hair, the grit and the taste of the tap.
- ✓You stop scrubbingApart in three pieces in ten seconds, steel straight in the dishwasher.
- ✓Fill it and forget it2.2 litres, so weeks between refills instead of a jug every morning.
- ✓Quiet enough that you forget it's onThe pump sits under the water line, so you hear the stream and not the motor.
Special summer offer
- +50% off while the summer sale is on
- +4 replacement filters, enough for your first four months
- +Cleaning kit with the brushes for the pump and tubing
- +365 day money back guarantee
Free tracked UK delivery · Not sold on Amazon
Dishwasher safe · BPA free · UK returns address · 2.2 litre capacity
Why any of this matters
- →He drinks properly now. Not a few desperate laps at a tap when I remember to turn it on, but all day, whenever he wants it
- →The one thing the vet said I had any control over was how much water goes into him. This is that thing
- →He's twelve. I'd like him to be eighteen. I can't do much about that, but I can stop being the reason he isn't drinking
- →And I've stopped lying in bed at night wondering whether the thing I do every morning is the thing that isn't working
Bess told me for fourteen years and I never once heard her.
Whatever your cat is telling you, she's telling you the same thing mine did. The only question is how long you leave it before you listen.
50% off · 4 free filters and a cleaning kit included · 365 day money back guarantee
P.S. That was a fortnight ago and he's still at it. Drinks whenever he wants now, and the ceramic bowl went in the bin the day the fountain arrived. I just wish I'd listened to him sooner.
Comments (218)
Julie M.
Reading this with my cat sat on the edge of the bath waiting for me. Twelve years I've been doing this. I genuinely thought it was just her personality. Off to look at the bowl now and I already know what I'm going to feel.
Like · Reply · 41 · 2 h
Denise P.
Question before I order. Mine is very jumpy, she bolts if the washing machine changes cycle. Is the pump going to frighten her off it?
Like · Reply · 9 · 3 h
PetHaven Brand
Hi Denise. The pump sits below the water line, so what you hear is the stream rather than the motor. Most owners tell us they forget it's running. If she's still unsure at first, leave her existing bowl down alongside it for the first week so nothing is taken away from her, and she'll usually make the switch in her own time. And you've got the full 365 days either way.
Like · Reply · 14 · 2 h
Angela H.
The bit about running your finger round the bottom of the bowl. I just did it. I actually feel sick. I have washed that thing every single morning.
Like · Reply · 63 · 5 h
Karen W.
Sorry but is stainless steel really that different or is this just marketing? I've got a plastic one and it seems fine to me.
Like · Reply · 4 · 1 d
PetHaven Brand
Fair question Karen. The difference is what happens over months rather than out of the box. Plastic softens and scuffs every time it's washed, and once there are fine scratches there are places a sponge can't reach, which is where that slippery film keeps coming back from. Steel doesn't scuff the same way under a sponge. Easiest test with your existing one: run a fingernail round the inside. If it catches, that's the bit we're talking about.
Like · Reply · 22 · 1 d
Karen W.
Well. It catches. Ordered.
Like · Reply · 31 · 22 h
Lorraine B.
Three weeks in. She used to drink from the shower tray after I'd had a shower, which I hated. Hasn't done it once since this arrived. I refill it every ten days or so and there's no slimy bit at the bottom, which there always was with the plastic one.
Like · Reply · 19 · 1 d
Margaret T.
Lost my Tabitha to kidney failure two years ago and she did the tap thing her whole life. I'm not saying it was that. But I've got a five year old now and I'm not sitting here doing nothing about it. Thank you for writing this.
Like · Reply · 88 · 1 d
Susan R.
Two cats here, will one be enough or do I need two of them?
Like · Reply · 3 · 1 d
PetHaven Brand
One is usually plenty for two cats. It holds 2.2 litres and the bowl is wide enough that two can drink at the same time without knocking heads. If they're not the best of friends and tend to guard things from each other, a second one in another room is worth it, but I'd start with one and see how they get on.
Like · Reply · 11 · 23 h
Gillian B.
Ordered on the Tuesday, arrived Friday, he was drinking out of it by Saturday teatime. Fourteen years old and he took to it faster than I did. Wish I'd known about the plastic thing years ago.
Like · Reply · 27 · 2 d