Do any of you have cats who prefer drinking water from their paws?

[sinbadsmom]

My feral-born kitty Rusty drank water normally when he was very young, but then he decided splashing in water was fun, and now he almost always prefers to drink water from his paw -- dipping his paw in water and then licking it off, sometimes from the top of the paw but more often from a cupped paw.

None of my cats who are now at Rainbow Bridge did this when drinking water, though Sinbad and Frosty would stick a paw into a glass of milk if they got to one.

Rusty does drink plenty of water, since he'll dip his paw in water again and again while drinking. He also regularly turns the floor around his water bowls into a pond, even with a plate set underneath to catch some of the water he splashes out.

He likes to drink from his paw when getting water from a running faucet, too -- in between splashing like mad to see how far the water will go.

Cindy

 

[garyganoo]

My Sophie would only drink water from a glass on my nightstand by dipping her paw in the water and then licking the water from her paw. She would keep repeating this until she had enough. (pictures below)

 

[salsanchips]

Couple of cuties they are

Of my three, the two males are all about playing with water. Doodad especially; he will purposefully spill his water bowl out on the stained concrete floor and lap it up rather than drink it directly out of the bowl. Frustrating in that I have to keep cleaning up the spilled water, but whatever, they're cats. They also drink directly from faucets and occasionaly from toliets (although I try to discourage that).

Drinking from the paw though? Never seen them do that (yet). Unique cats you have there

 

[catbehaviors]

Sometimes Wessie drinks water out of the toilet with his paw.

It seems that he hardly drinks water out of a bowl anymore... now that we are giving most of it in his food.

 

[carolina]

Bugsy does that too; he either drinks this way (with his paw) from the fountain bowl, or directly from the water stream... I guess his head is just too big to drink from the bowl without getting soaked

Bugsy has a big head, and huge, fluuuuuffy, mane

 

[pamszoo]

I have one, Lil T< who drinks with his paws. He's constantly playing in the fountain or bowl. Personally, I think he just likes to make a sloppin mess for momma to clean up!

 

[frankthetank]

Just recently Toby has decided that drinking from his paws is more fun. I noticed it at first when he would climb into the sink....then I noticed that if I walked near the water dish, the floor was soaked. I watched awhile, and noticed he would go to the dish and play in it for a couple minutes, then start drinking water from his paws. So funny!

 

[mysterycat]

Just saw max doing that too, dip his right paw on his bowl and lick it for about 3 times and will drink on his bowl, I thought he was just measuring the water level.

 

[greycat2]

I have one that likes to use her front paws to drink water as well as water normally and that would be our 17 year old Kuce. She doesn't play with the water though (it might ruin her "dignity".)

 

[sinbadsmom]

Thanks for the replies!

And Gary, thanks for posting those pics of your beautiful cats! What Sophie is doing there looks sooooooooo familiar!

Love hearing about what the other kitties do, too.

I don't have any pics of Rusty drinking from his paw, but found some old ones of when he started playing with water.

I've sometimes wondered if he started dipping his paws in water because of the cat face in his old water bowl. He was about 8 weeks old when this was taken.



The pic below was taken a day later. At that age he was still very wary of the sink, especially with water running:



But four months later that had changed, and it was hard to keep him out of the sink:







I now have to keep a Corelle plate and a saucepan full of water in that side of the sink, over the garbage disposal. I suppose most of you have read the story circulated on the Net years ago -- a true story; see http://www.snopes.com/critters/disposal/catchday.asp -- of a cat who got his head stuck in a garbage disposal. I don't want that to happen to Rusty, and I've never been able to discourage him from playing in the sink.

 

[def kitty]

My Nibbler used to drink like a normal cat when he was a young kitten, and maybe around 4 months he started drinking by dipping his paw in the water bowl and then licking it

He still drinks the normal way occasionally but I noticed that his technique is not very good, because more water ends up on the floor than in his tummy, so maybe that's why he started drinking from his paw!

 

[bastetservant]

At the shelter where I volunteer there are a couple of the loose cats who dip their paws into the watering cans on the floor that are used to fill the water bowls in the cages.

I think it is so cute! that they drink that way!

I never had a cat who did this, but I had one, particularly, who was obsessed with water. One problem was his overturning the water dishes and splashing water out of them. I had to buy a big, heavy, ceramic dog dish for water (still have it and it is a favorite water dish of all my cats). I could only put a little water in it at a time, and placed it on a very big plastic tray. Eventually, as he got older, the water issues decreased.

I do have cats now who will dip their paws to get at water in my class if it is out and accessible to them. I hate that. Especially if it is expensive Pellegrino water or something like that and I have to then dump it out.

Robin