My cat is now doing new weird things with his water bowl.
For years, I have used the PetSmart Water Fountain, and just recently Tunch has started throwing his food in it. I would wake up, and all of his dry food would be in the basin of the fountain, in a sludgy mess. He did this every night for two weeks, so I just got tired of cleaning it every morning and put up a regular water bowl.
Now, for the last three mornings, he has simply flipped his water bowl. I almost died the first morning, walking in to the kitchen in my slippers and stepping in a puddle of water on the linoleum, sliding across the kitchen. At any rate, the bowl has been flipped over every day, and the cat almost knocks me over in the bathroom trying to drink out of the sink whenever I turn the water on.
I thought maybe he had a tooth problem, and wanted soft food. Checked his teeth, and they are fine. He also does not have a urinary tract infection.
Any ideas, or should I just chalk this up to ‘cat being nuts like cats always are?’
srv
Something in the water.
Douglas
It’s a cat, he’s doing it cuz he’s a cat.
Horshu
I would imagine it’s a combination of it not liking dry food (my vet told me that soft food is better due to the higher protein content…keeps their weight down easier) and being upset more than usual due to the discomfort from the infection. They’re very passive aggressive creatures and have their damage capabilities damn-near to the level of sign language.
oomab
Your cat is toying with you. You wouldn’t want a cat that didn’t do things like this; what fun would that be? I like your cat’s style, honestly.
Stormy70
Have you changed the filter in the Pet Smart Fountain? I have a similar set-up and I need to clean it out once every two weeks. Cats have backwash isssues and the filters do need to be changed or the water does not smell right.
Meadow, the 2 yr old will also drown some of her toys. Those fluffy foil balls make pretty colors in the water when abandoned to die, and stain the carpet when she is in just a dunking mood.
Some cats like to play with their water bowls, and they do have some heavier metal bowls with a non-slide bottom.
Good luck.
Stormy70
Oops! I don’t change the filter every two weeks, just take it out and rinse it. However, if you have never changed the filter, then I would try that first.
srv
Actually, it may not be the water – does it have a filter? Take it apart and clean it. Maybe the cat smells something.
ppGaz
I have a cat who will repeatedly take a catnip mouse or other toy, and dunk it in the water bowl. In, and out. In, and out.
I can swirl the water and two of the four cats will sit and watch it as if it were a tv show.
Another cat takes the dry (Iams) food in her mouth, and then drops it on the floor or in the water, and then comes back later and eats it.
These animals are insane. I don’t know of any other explanation.
Slide
kill the cat.
just kidding of course. As an owner (if that is the proper word) of five (yes five) cats I can sympathize with you somewhat. Sliding on the linoleum is nearly as much fun as stepping into a fresh pile of cat vomit with one’s bare feet at 4 in the morning.
on second thought, kill the cat.
Mary
He’s thirsty, John, but just not thirsty enough to drink from that bowl of boring, still, tepid water that mysteriously replaced his awesome fountain. Some cats go on water strikes (our little black cat did) instead of food strikes. They are extremely fussy about absolutely fresh, clean cold water. Any day now, he’s going to start mugging you when you drink any liquid from a glass.
My suggestions:
1) Has a vet ruled out ALL the plausibles — urinary tract, teeth and, especially, diabetes?
2) Make the water colder in his new dish (a big heavy one, weighted with clean, large, interesting aquarium stones if necessary) by dropping an icecube or two in every day. Or make it half icecubes, half water in the morning and let the cubes melt and provide cold water all day.
3) About the original food sabotage: maybe he just really wants wet food. Our tabby went on a successful hunger strike when we changed her dry kibble, and the vet insisted we feed her wet food to bring her weight back up as she was a skinny old lady to begin with. She and the black cat now split a small can of food every afternoon and stay on kibble the rest of the time.
4) OR — give him back his old drinking fountain and start feeding him wet food only (which is not conducive to being carried and dropped with precision). In the absence of kibble, have some toys placed near his fountain so he can play by dropping them in without fouling the water. Once he’s playing the game with toys, bring back the kibble.
jg
My cats don’t even have a water bowl. They never drank from it anyway. They either drink from the the dogs bowl or they stand on the sink yeling at me until I run the faucet. My dog has serious water bowl issues. She looks like she’s trying to drink the water on the bottom of the bowl and water goes everywhere.
Mary
BTW, our little black cat moved on from stealing water and cold tea from our glasses and mugs to asking for water from the sink. We complied at first because we though it was cute, but it got old fast. We got her a Catit fountain and, thank God, she has transferred obsession to that.
Don’t get between a cat and her water. Seriously.
Dave
Got a cat that gave up standing water bowl when we got one of those fountain water ball decorations. He began drinking exclusively from that. That eventually broke, and we got one of those water fountains.
Easy fix there John. Just put your water fountain in a differnt part of your house so the cat CAN’T put his food into the water.
John Cole
Wow. You have to be an engineer.
Steve S
Yep, they don’t like the water. I don’t know why. If they like what’s in the bathroom then maybe use that?
As to tipping the bowl over… I use small cat bowls for food, and a big dog bowl for water. Each get’s their own food bowl(and oddly enough, they care… squeek uses one of the left, bubbles the right) The big ceramic dog bowl can’t be tipped over.
I toss the ceramic bowls in the dishwasher periodically.
Cat’s are strange. My one cat bubbles keeps trying to bury her food. That is, she scratches on the floor next to it. It’s just instinct for some reason.
While moist food is good for some things… dry food is better for the teeth. At least the dry food with larger kibbles that they chew. I buy Natural Choice at petsmart.
Steve S
I had a petmate fountain, and the thing leaked. I may try a catit as tha tlooks cool. I guess the other thing I didn’t like about the fountain was I couldn’t just toss it in the dishwasher to clean like my ceramic bowls.
whatsleft
What does it mean that our 10-month-old kitten was drinking cranberry juice (surreptitiously) out of my cup???? And he likes to scoop water out of his bowl, leaving little puddles in the kitchen.
John Cole
It means you have a healthy 10 month old cat.
Darrell
“Cat Whisperer”.. now that is funny.
CaseyL
It’s possible Tunch doesn’t like the taste of the water in the bowl, and misses his fountain. If you fill the bowl with tap water, maybe the City changed its water treatment somehow, which changed the flavor (detectable only by the sensitive feline pallet).
Or: Do you have raccoons in your neighborhood? Maybe Tunch saw them washing their food in someone’s outdoor water dish and thought that looked pretty cool.
I keep a self-filling water dish on my porch for any critter who wants to drink from it, and the local raccoon family has definitely used it to wash in. My senior cat, Ariel, on occasion takes a pawful of food (squish, not kibble) and dips it in her indoor water dish – something I doubt would have occurred to her if she hadn’t seen raccoons do it. She also likes to take pawfuls of water and drink from her paw, another habit she might also have gotten from the raccoons.
She has other bizarre drinking habits. She is fastidious about her indoor water dish, which must be changed at least once a day. But she’ll also hang around the bathroom while I’m taking a shower, and then drink the water that gathers in the door runners. And when she’s outside, she drinks lavishly from rain puddles – esp. puddles in the parking lot, which have god-knows-what oil and dirt and other automotive-related detritus in them.
Laurence Simon
I’ll ask the cats about this tonight.
Laura
Both of my cats have always drank with their paws. They used to move the bowl all over the kitchen, spilling water all over. I now use a big, heavy mixing bowl. It looks strange but it stays in place. But they prefer to drink out of the toilet. If I leave the seat cover up, they never touch the water in their mixing bowl.
james richardson
if it’s just happening now, possibly something’s changed. anything change at the time she started doing it? different cleaning detergent? different dry cat food? different bowl? you could try a non-tipping or weighted bowl and she how she responds to that.
Mr Furious
First, I AM the cat whisperer. Been a running joke in my marriage for years. I will approach any cat on the street and it will love me. We have friends with a cat (aptly) named Killer—I am the only person who can pet it…
Some Questions:
Is Tunch overweight?
How old is he?
My cat developed diabetes, and in retrospect, his odd water behavior was probably a sign. Basically, he needed to drink ALL the time, and would FLOOD his litter box.
He also preferred to drink out of a dribbling sink faucet. And would always leap into the shower when I was done to lick any drips. Wack.
My cat also had some dental probs, and liked to soften up the food.
If he is healthy, and just a freak, go buy a heavy dog bowl or give him back the fountain, and keep his food on the other side of the room.
Do you use scoopable litter? If he messes with his water and then steps in the litter with wet feet that stuff clumps up on him and they end up injesting it.
If for any reason Tunch stops cleaning himself, get his ass to the vet. That is always a sign something’s wrong.
John Cole
None of those, Furious, and my sister’s cat is diabetic, so I know the symptoms. I also scoop his litter every day, and see no signs. Further, I use expensive litter (Litter Pearls), so no clumping.
I tthink he is just a freak.
Mr Furious
Sounds like he’s just trying to piss you off. Give him back his fountain (cleaned and with a new filter), and keep his food across the room from it.
Good luck.
I miss my cat…
Far North
I’ve had cats for a good portion of my life. Several of them eventually do something like hopping up on the bathroom counter and waiting for us to fill a 8 or 12 oz drinking glass with fresh water so they can drink from it. We started getting used to the idea of re-filling the glass whenever we used the bathroom.
Current cats, both Elton and Hamish have a weird little rituals that are similar to your situation. Whenever they are done drinking, they just have to knock the fucking glass over and spill the remaining water. We’ve caught ’em a few times and they just seem so pleased with themselves when they do this. We don’t get pissed anymore. I actually get a chuckle out of it now.
We now leave several plastic glasses filled with water and 3 or 4 house locations. They seem to drink more water now. Their fur / coats seem much healthier looking now. The vet told us that proper hydration will do that for cats.
Big E
my cat has 3 separate water bowls,
she will, with the one in my bedroom [yeah, I know,
I really indulge her ]
lay down beside it and let out meows
like she was dying, have a few sips….
then fall asleep…
moonbiter
Wash the bowl with a mild, non-scented detergent and try giving your cat some distilled water for a few days. As others have noted, cats are sensitive to chemicals that are often in normal tap water. If that works, then it is very possibly the water.
You might also try – as others have already suggested – a bigger, heavier bowl. This is beneficial not only because it is more difficult for the cat to flip it over, but also because cats in general don’t like to bend their whiskers when drinking. This might be a source of your cat’s irritation.
It would be helpful if you could observe his behavior *when* he actually does the flipping. That might give you some clue as to why he does it.
Shygetz
My former cat used to refuse to drink water out of anything on the floor. We would have to put a cup of water on the table. And not just any cup–it had to be the kind of cup we usually drink out of. Our cat would stick her head all the way inside the plastic tumbler to lick the water out of the bottom. So she at least did not mind bending her whiskers. Cats are weird.
Krista
Mine never drank out of a bowl. Instead, I’d have to put the plug in the tub, and fill it with a small amount of cold water, just enough so that there was still dry tub for him to stand on.He’d hop in the tub and have his drink, and then away he went.
Mr Furious
The worry there is anti-freeze. Even a small amount will kill a pet, and to make matters worse, it tastes good to them. Bad stuff. There are alternate versions, but no one really buys them and the companies (AFAIK) are not forced to do anything about producing an extremely toxic yet sweet-tasting product.
fwiffo
I find it weird that modifying behavior via positive/negative reinforcement is considered a standard part about raising a dog, but would never occur to a cat owner. Everyone just accepts that cats are meant to be spoiled brats.
If you’ve eliminated health concerns, and water quality issues, and food preference issues, maybe you need to initiate a state-out of the food dish with a spray-bottle.
Mary
On the other hand, sometimes it’s just fun to be a bottom, you know?
Our Burmese had to be trained like a dog to be less aggressive to us as a kitten, but in return, he taught himself how to fetch, so we now have a Rottweiler puppy that purrs. Win-win. And we spoiled our little black cat by giving her water from the bathroom sink on demand for a couple of weeks, but have been successful at un-spoiling her with her new fountain just by removing reinforcement. She still comes rushing to the bathroom when we run water, but she doesn’t get any and she’s stopped howling for us to come and turn it on several times a day.
That all said, spraying a cat with water when they misbehave a) ain’t as easy as it looks b) takes a hell of a lot of patience and luck to catch every time c) may generalize to an unwanted response, like being scared of John or kibble.
I still say Tunce made up a food game that amused his tiny and devious mind. Keeping the food far away from the fountain may be sufficient, but if you don’t want to bring back the fountain, John, use a large, weighted bowl to make yourself happy and add ice cubes and stones/toys to make Tunce happy. Win-win again.
Larry
Clean the water dish with baking soda, then rinse and fill with distilled water. The nose knows.
Unless there is a diagnosed health issue, dry food is essential for healthy teeth as plaque is potentially deadly for cats — so twice a year cleaning is a good thing.
To get more water in the little monster, try this:
Mini-cuisinart a small Fancy Feast (or whatever) to smooth, mix with the good water til pourable and strain, strain, strain.
One teaspoon mixed with more good water makes em think they’re getting wet food. HAH! Extra water in the kitty.
And, yes. I am completely pussy whipped.
buzz
Yeah, spray a cat. Right. I tried that for quite a while. My cat not only enjoys being sprayed, but will then charge the water bottle and try to bite the spraying part. Assuming their insane explains a lot of things.
Vlad
This is going to sound really crazy, but give it a try anyway:
Cats like the taste of things that are bitter. Add a little bit of tonic water to the water in his water bowl, and see if his behavior improves.
Krista
While at it, may as well add a bit of gin to your own water bowl, to see if your own behaviour improves. :)
Laura
My cats love water. They don’t mind standing in a sink with water building up, but they hate getting sprayed. I have to resort to it once in a while, and I say “no” or “down” at the same time, so eventually those words alone work, without the bottle. But after a couple weeks, they figure out my words have no consequences. When my male cat thinks I’m sleeping in too late, he’ll jump on my dresser and he’ll scoot something to the edge, and stare at me. If he’s recently been “trained,” saying down will get him to stop. If it’s been a while, he’ll laugh in my face, see that the water bottle is no where to be seen, and knock everything off the dresser until I jump up and grab him to cuddle or just get out of bed for good. I can’t shut him out of my room because he can open the door. (I have handles that you push down, not “knobs). Sometimes I just have to sleep with the water bottle by my bed if I want to get a full night’s sleep. Cats are definitely trainable, but you have to be consistent. I’m not.
jg
If you want a cat to stop doing something a loud hiss will work everytime. Make the noise mommy made when they were bad kittens and you’ll get their attention. A quick ‘pssst’ and my cats stop doing whatever they’re doing and run. They usually only run about 4 feet then turn and give me the ‘WTF’ face but it does work.
Just remember cats aren’t like dogs, they’re not pets, they’re roommates.
Steve S
No, that’s how I’ve trained my cats. They stay off the sofa, and for the most part the countertops and table…
Cats are harder to train. But you can teach them to fetch, roll over, stand, sit, etc. It just takes a lot of patience.
Krista
On your part AND on the part of the cat. I can see the point of basic discipline and obedience training, but fetching and rolling over? That’s never made sense to me as to why either a cat OR a dog needs to know that.
Mr Furious
Plenty of smiles from all the commentary.
My cat countered the spray bottle by doing his misbehaving in areas where I couldn’t spray him…on top of the stereo, flipping CDs one by one onto the floor. that type of thing.
Call me insane
The simple truth is that most cats are insane. I think most of the time they just do shit to do it. Since I put my christmas tree up my cat has spent the majority of the day up in the middle of it and I have no idea how to get him out. Anybody have any suggestions about that?
Call me insane
I couldn’t agree more!
Krista
I hold Dreyfus only to a few basic rules. No snapping at anybody, no stealing food, and no gambling. He sits for Beggin’ Strips, and that’s just because otherwise, it’s like feeding a small, fuzzy crocodile.
CaseyL
An old friend once pointed out to me two things about cats:
1. Their brains are smaller than a ping pong ball.
2. Feline cerebral-spinal fluid is, chemically speaking, similar to LSD.
Put those two factoids together – a brain no bigger than a ping-pong ball, floating in a little sea of acid – and that explains everything, I think :D
rilkefan
A sane, informative, comity-filled thread – is this actually Balloon Juice?
TallDave
Dude, you need this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000688XLY/qid=1134682429/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-0319871-2265715?n=507846&s=kitchen&v=glance
My kittens love it. Can’t be flipped.
Laura
Speaking of Christmas trees… the tree stand has overtaken the toilet as one of my cat’s favorite watering holes. I’m not sure it’s healthy, but she seems ok. And yes, cats are insane.
TallDave
Oh, FYI, according to one of the “Cats for Dummies” authors cats like moving water because it’s oxygenated. They can actually smell the difference even in water that has only been sitting an hour. (Presumably, in the wild this is a life-and-death skill for them, as stagnant water is generally unsafe to drink.) Furious, that’s probably why your cat chased dribbles and showers; it’s the only water that smells “right” to him. My cats used to do that too, until I got them the fountain.
The cat-it fountain has a big round dome the water flows over. Cats like to lick the moving water off the dome, which makes girls squeal at the almost unbearable cuteness of it all.
TallDave
Since I put my christmas tree up my cat has spent the majority of the day up in the middle of it and I have no idea how to get him out. Anybody have any suggestions about that?
Adjust to the fact your cat has a new home.
I try to see things from their perspective. Cats are not pack animals and don’t feel they have any obligation to do what you want. Like people, they want to do what they want and resent being imposed upon. So unless they’re doing something excessively dangerous or expensive, I try to give them their freedom.
Mary
rilkefan, not only is this a sane and friendly thread, but TallDave and I recommended the same cat fountain. I think that’s one of the seven signs of the apocalypse.
So we have a fake plastic Christmas tree. The cats like to chew on it. Will it kill them or just make them stronger?
waddayaknow
leave the toilet seat up. he’ll figure it out….
Krista
You’ll have to try doing it yourself to see if they squeal at you. :)
Mary
You get extra points if you can lick the water from a foot away.
Krista
Extra points? He’d never have to worry about getting a date for the rest of his life!
Jeffery Faulk
Yes, they’re nuts. My Manx taught me to throw his favorite toys so that he can retrieve them for me to throw again. And again. And again.
Larry
A joke (in the spirit of the ‘dome’ thread direction)
Woman gets tired of dating losers, runs a personal ad that reads;
‘Looking for a man who won’t beat me,
Won’t run off,
And is good in bed.’
Three weeks — no response.
Then her doorbell rings — she looks out the peephole – nothing.
Bell rings again – she looks – no one there.
The bell again -she opens it and looks down at a no armed / no legged man in a wheelchair.
“Yes?” she says.
“I’m answering your ad.”
Her, “But…”
“Well I can’t run away.”
Her, “That’s true…”
“And I can’t beat you.”
“Yeah….” she says. “But what about the last part?”
“I rang the bell didn’t I?”
BIRDZILLA
We had a cat that climbed our christmas tree twice
Beatnik
Your cat is just being a dick.