Increasing water intake for a cat with 0 thirst drive

[Furballsmom]

This is terrific, good for you

 

[Musiaka]

Sylvie eats only wet food (either canned with a little extra water added, or fully rehydrated freeze-dried raw) and has always ignored the water in her water bowl. For the most part, I don't worry about it, because she's getting plenty of liquid from her food, but I did mention it to our vet.

The vet advised me that a cat's water bowl should not be placed right next to the food dish, because the cat will instinctually avoid drinking that water. In the wild, she said, a big cat's food source (its freshly killed prey) and its water source (the nearest river or stream) will not be adjacent; if they were, the cat would consider that water source contaminated by the dead animal and would not drink from it.

I was skeptical, and don't have enough floor space in my kitchen to place the water bowl far from the food dish. But, as an experiment, I filled a Pyrex custard cup with water and tucked it into the little bit of floor space between the kitchen table and the microwave cart. To my amazement, Sylvie has been going there and drinking the water!

Yes, I've heard this before too and was normally always keeping Musiaka's drinking glass separarely and he was happily drinking from it (back when he used to eat kibble). I place water bowls in several different locations now and he still doesn't drink from any of them :/