Question Of The Day, Friday, Sept 15

[Mother Dragon]

We have an oversize Drinkwell fountain all of the kids love. They almost all drink the water as it falls instead of in the pool below. Darwin also likes to slap the waterfall, making a big mess. Velcro dumps his puffballs in it so they can get a drink, too. He sometimes removes them so we can step on them in the middle of the night. A wet, cold squishy puffball will wake you up every time. He also takes a chosen few for dinner in the dry food bowl after their bath. It gets refilled every other day unless someone puts food in it. Then we have to take it all apart and scrub it immediately.

We also have a quart glass up on a low filing cabinet in the bedroom. They drink that one down as far as their tongues will reach every day, too. They did have a stainless steel bowl in the bathroom but they didn't like it so we removed it. There's also a stainless steel bowl upstairs that they ignore.

We refill from the fridge, which has a filer in the water dispenser. If it's good enough for us, it's fine for them. Chocolate used to like a little bowl of ice water right by the fridge but she doesn't drink it there any longer, giving it the royal sniff and stroll away treatment.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

They get tap water in their fountain.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

i use corelle bowls for my cats water dishes, because they're quite hard to break. i keep one of them (they're deep bowls) on a mat on the kitchen floor. i change to a fresh bowl about once a week, and rinse and wipe out the bowl in between changes. i use a Pur pitcher, so filtered water.

my three get a little water added to their (wet food) meals. they do occasionally drink from the water bowl. i'd be afraid to add ice cubes to their water dish, as the girls would likely find great joy in playing with them -- and that would result in water spilled on the kitchen floor.

 

[AbbysMom]

Bottled water in a fountain. She used to get tap, but our tap water hasn't been great lately.

 

[Mia6]

Good morning! And Happy Friday!

Our question this morning concerns our furry kids: How do your kids get water? Do you have water bowls? Fountains? Do you put ice cubes in their water bowls? How about the type of water? Is it water from your tap? Filtered? Do you buy water for them?

We have a huge ceramic water bowl for the cats and The Beast. I wash it, rinse it, dry it, fill it with ice cubes and water from a jug of spring water. Twice a day. We buy four gallons of water every week. We used to put out two large bowls after The Beast first came to live with us. But she was drinking both bowls completely dry and she's not allowed to have a ton of water. We give her full rein of the kitchen and the water bowl while we're gone during the day. Til we get home at night, the bowl is dry. I clean it out, replace with ice and spring water and then it's the cats' turn to drink; The Beast has to stay in the living room.

How do your kids get their water?

Who is the Beast? do you have a pic?

My girls drink their water from Pyrex bowls. I keep 2 downstairs and 2 upstairs.
I give them fresh cold water from the fridge twice daily. I only use tap water as
ours is very good.

 

[Willowy]

Who is the Beast?

That's their Beagle .

I like glass or ceramic bowls, not too large. I got some really nice flat-bottomed glass bowls at Ikea that I use for their water dishes, plus there's the big plastic dog bowl in the kitchen. I tried water dispensers and fountains and large bowls, etc. but I find that having a bowl small enough to dump and refill every day is better. Dispensers get dirty fast, and who wants to dump a 3-gallon dispenser that often? And they liked the fountains but they were high-maintenance and too much fun to play in so not worth it. And large bowls are too hard to dump and refill.

They just get tap water. No reason not to use it.

 

[rubysmama]

Before I switched Ruby to mostly canned food, I'd regularly see her drink water. Since the switch, I don't think she ever drinks from her water dish. I do put fresh, fridge-chilled tap water in her dish twice a day in case she ever wants a drink. But I also add a bit of water to her canned food, so she probably gets plenty that way.

 

[OneBlackBean]

Ouija isn't too fussy, he'll drink from the dogs bowl (very passive aggressively nudging her out of the way, sometimes) or glasses that are out. He's learned how to turn on the bathroom sink tap now, which he seems to really enjoy the novelty of.

 

[misty8723]

I have two stainless steel bowls - one upstairs, one downstairs. Get's emptied, cleaned, and refilled twice a day (morning and evening). I also have a ceramic fountain that get emptied, cleaned, refilled weekly (or more often if I am feeling ambitious). They get spring water I buy at the store, and the fountain is also filtered. No ice cubes.

 

[DreamerRose]

I can't put bowls down because Mingo is a water clearer - you know, the cats that have to clean the surface of the water and slap it all over the floor. So I have a Drinkwell fountain, which he used to drink from. He stopped when I got Lily. She will drink from the bowl in the fountain, but he won't. Mingo's preferred place is the toilet, which I try to keep clean. I can occasionally hear him in there splashing around. He can "clear" that to his heart's content.

But we had an episode of struvite crystals, so now I mix water in his wet food. Since then, he almost never drinks any water, toilet or fountain.

 

[raysmyheart]

Speedy has a pail in the bathroom that is right up to the height of her chin so she can just drink. She looks so happy when she is drinking water. The pail thing happened by accident and I never got rid of it because she prefers her pail to the fountain I bought her.

 

[Winchester]

Who is the Beast? do you have a pic?

The Beast is our elderly Beagle from Hades. Her name is Jackie. I have some pictures of her somewhere.....will have to check.

 

[blueyedgirl5946]

We have the Kenetico water softening system which includes the reverse osmosis faucet from the sink. He drinks that water in a stainless bowl, one on the porch, one on the step outside.

 

[di and bob]

I used to have a fountain, but the clean up became too time consuming. Now I just put our reverse osmosis water in ceramic bowls in several places around the house. Then move them so they think it's a game to find them. They drink a lot more this way. I also add a teeth cleaning additive, and have never had an issue with their teeth. I go to this extent, cleaning and refilling daily, and then see them drinking out of mud puddles and bird baths!

 

[destinyz12]

we have 2 feeding stations- one upstairs in the spare bedroom for their dry food, and one downstairs in the kitchen for their wet food. Each station has a ceramic water bowl that the 2 cats share and I try to use filtered or bottled water most of the time. I haven't tried a fountain yet but I am curious if they would use it-might end up being a holiday present for them. One of my cats used to love drinking from the faucet but lately she seems kind of over that phase.