Cats and water.

Mikkie, my first cat, loved sitting on the countertop, playing with the water coming out of the tap. She would even stand in the sink, playing with the water, not being bothered one bit by getting wet.

Cato didn’t like water. Whenever a few drops landed on him when he was in the kitchen, he would run.

Charlie loves running water: playing with it and drinking it straight from the tap or licking it off his paw. Tina likes running water too, but is not as keen on it as Charlie is.

Cats are not great drinkers. That’s why wet food and raw meat like chicken fillet is way better for them than dry food which also often contains a lot of grain fillers which a cat can’t process. Wet food has about 78 percentage of water in it and dry food only about 8. Still, even on a wet diet, it is a good thing when a cat drinks a bit too. When cats drink a lot, you might be in trouble. On a diet with a lot of fillers, cats can develop diabetes. When they start losing weight and drink a lot then you better see your vet as soon as possible. First get them off the food with all the fillers and get them on a grain-free, wet diet. Grau does tinned food without grains and Applaws do dry food without grains (you can buy these at zooplus.ie)

Now, back to Charlie and Tina and the water. Because they both like running water I decided to give a drinking fountain a try. The lucky kitty drinking fountain consists of a ceramic bowl with ceramic top. It comes with a little electric pump and a tube. One end of the tube is connected to the pump. The rubber feet of the pump are then pressed in place inside the bowl and you fill the bowl with water. You connect the other end of the tube to the outlet of the ceramic top and place the top over the bowl. Your fountain is ready for use. It makes a slight humming noise but you can hardly hear it and the water slowly streams from the top down into an opening at the bottom where it goes back in the bowl again.

You clean the bowl and top every few days and the pump about once a week. I would recommend using filtered water as it filters out most of the lime so your pump is less likely to clog up with lime deposit.

We use one of these jug water filters for our own drinking water and for the cats.

After installing the fountain, Charlie was the first to give it a go. It was fun watching him play with the water and licking it off the rippled surface.

Tina went at it as well and seemed to like it straight away.

It’s been working away now for a few days and Orla observed them going for it a couple of times. I also saw them drink from it a few times and play with the water as well. All in all, a good buy, I think. The nice thing about this fountain is that it is sturdy, made of dishwasher-proof ceramics. It is quite heavy so cats won’t knock it over or move it around. The pump is quiet and can be replaced. A replacement pump costs 10 Euro. If the tube ever needs to be replaced, you can probably get it in a DIY shop. There are no filters in it that need to be replaced.

Tina and Charlie seem happy with it and when my cats are happy, I’m happy.

 Charlie playing with the fountain.