What Was Your Cat's Reaction To Getting A Water Fountain?

[smosmosmo]

Smo's water fountain came in today, and I finished cleaning it and setting it up an hour ago. She seemed interested, then apprehensive, and started batting at the moving stream of water like she was afraid it would hurt her. She then sniffed at the pool of water but wouldn't drink from it.

I had her usual bowl of water a couple feet away from the fountain - she started drinking from that, got spooked by the fountain, and abruptly walked away from her bowl. I've relocated the fountain to the far corner of the room, but she won't go near it. I already have it on the lowest setting and it's not loud at all, but she still seems scared of it.

I'm curious how everyone else's cats reacted to their water fountains? I can't tell if Smo just needs to get used to the fountain or if she's never going to use it, and I'm kind of worried that having the fountain in the room is going to deter from drinking in general. I swear, this cat is determined to be as difficult as possible...

 

[pearl99]

Waffles took a bit to trust it, he drank from the regular water bowl for probably a week before the fountain. It's very quiet, so it wasn't noise but unfamiliarity with it. He started creeping up to it and staring, then he stuck his paw in the water, and gradually overcame the fear. They both love it, especially when I put new water in it- they seem to like fresh water (they are like that with the bowl of water I keep out too, so no one's fighting over water .)
Likely Smo will get used to it.

 

[smosmosmo]

pearl99 Yeah, I'm reading some other posts about water fountains on the forums and apparently it takes some getting used to. What fountain are you using? We went with the Pet Pioneer Raindrop fountain because it's ceramic, but even on the lowest setting it makes a little trickling sound. I wonder if Smo would do better with a completely silent one.

 

[daftcat75]

I think Krista eats enough wet food often enough that she pretty much never drinks water. Except when she barfs. Then sometimes it’s as easy as putting down a bowl and filling it with cold filtered water. I actually have a small collection of fountains. The only one she drinks from once in a blue moon (or twice on a green stomach) is the Pet Kit fountain. Even though it’s plastic, cleanup is a snap. It’s easy to clean it once a week because I don’t have to reach into it to thread the power cord into the pump. I actually just bought a second one so I can swap a clean one in once a week and clean the dirty offline. The power cord goes in dry into the bottom so that makes it easy to swap one in and take the other away to clean. I also like that it will shut off the pump and turn on a light to tell me when the water is low. No burning out the pump running it dry. And there is another light to remind me when to change the filter. Of all the fountains I have tried, this is the quietest (I never hear it!), the easiest to clean, the friendliest (and geekiest) technology, and it won’t burn itself out or catch on fire if the pump runs dry. So that makes it the safest too. At that price, it’s certainly worth a try. Or two.

PETKIT Cat Water Fountain 2.0, 2L Automatic Pet Drinking Fountain Super Quiet with Water-Shortage & Filter-Change Reminder, Auto Shut-Off Cat Water Dispenser Bowl Fountain for Dogs and Cats

 

[smosmosmo]

daftcat75 You are seriously blessed - Smo acts like I'm serving up her own poop every time I plop any wet food in front of her. And that fountain looks really nice - I wish I'd gone with that instead of the Pet Pioneer, which looks like a mini urinal and sounds a bit like one too lol.

 

[Purr-fect]

Both boys adapted immediately to the pioneer raindrop fountain. Although thier heads are so big, they have difficulty drinking comfortably from it. I have been trying to buy the larger style fountain for them. Greg has to actually lie on the ground to drink from it, but spends alot of time with the fountain.

 

[pearl99]

pearl99 Yeah, I'm reading some other posts about water fountains on the forums and apparently it takes some getting used to. What fountain are you using? We went with the Pet Pioneer Raindrop fountain because it's ceramic, but even on the lowest setting it makes a little trickling sound. I wonder if Smo would do better with a completely silent one.

I have this one:

It says currently unavailable from Amazon. They don't like the flower attachment on it so it's just the plain fountain. It starts to gurgle when the water gets low. Have been happy with it and it's easy to clean.

 

[smosmosmo]

Purr-fect You are so blessed. I was watching people set up the Raindrop fountain on YouTube and their cats took to it immediately. Mine reacted with extreme suspicion then started punching the water stream like it was threatening her...sigh.

pearl99 So kind of like the Catit daisy fountain? I think I'm going to look into that if Smo keeps being afraid of the Raindrop.

 

[pearl99]

pearl99 So kind of like the Catit daisy fountain? I think I'm going to look into that if Smo keeps being afraid of the Raindrop.

It looks just like it, probably is made by the same company and distributed by different entities- I've had it since 2017 and have not had any problems with it. It's big for 2 cats, I change the water about every 2 days and wash it out.

 

[cheeseburger]

We have two of the CatIt daisy fountains that we use without flower. Both cats took about a week to adapt and now they are champion drinkers.

 

[fionasmom]

I have had multiple fountains for years and the dog and all cats use them. Mine are older versions of the Drinkwell line....they do trickle a little and make slight noise but that has not been a problem. I firmly believe that the use of fountains greatly extended the life of one of my cats with kidney disease.

Mine all acted as if I was some sort of an idiot for not getting fountains sooner. I have a picture of Zoe (kidney disease) sitting next to it like it belonged to her and she had finally managed to get the message across to me. There a bowls of water all over the house as well, so it is not like they were deprived of water at any time.

Having said that, for some cats it does take getting used to. Friends have said that most cats came around to using it, even if they saw it as a toy at first and batted at the water.

 

[IronHippo]

We've had the Wonder Creature Stainless Steel Top fountain (basically the Catit flower fountain, except with a stainless steel bowl instead of plastic) for about 6 weeks now. Both kitties were initially curious once I set it up and plugged it in, and sniffed at it and tried to bat the water. They seemed to leave it alone after that. After about a week, I saw Marple drinking from it, and she visits it pretty regularly.

We got the fountain mainly for Radish, but he would still just sniff at the running water. Finally, about a week ago, I finally saw him drinking from it and he is now doing it regularly too! He just licks the head of the flower instead of the falling water...which I think is probably not how he's supposed to do it, but he's the kind of cat that does things a little bit differently.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

We bought the mini Catit flower fountain some months back. It took our cat weeks to get used to it, but she drinks from it occasionally now. It is a curiosity to her, lol. Because we cannot rely upon it as her sole source of water, we still keep two other water bowls out in other rooms.

 

[VinceL]

Our 2 girls got to the point where they would only drink from the kitchen faucet. Of course, I enabled them by turning it on at a slow flow rate. A water dish was always available since our 2 boys use it.

We got the Catit Flower fountain for them. I did have to modify it a bit to raise the flower so the length of the water stream was similar to the kitchen sink. They were a bit timid at first, but soon started drinking from it regularly. When we went to our condo in Florida, we didn't bring the fountain. The girls had no problems going back to drinking from a water dish. We did not set up the fountain when we got back home, and they have been using the water dish.

I'm keeping the fountain......just in case.

 

[1 bruce 1]

We got a fountain a few years ago when we noticed one of our boys were fascinated by a leaky faucet. He'd crouch on the counter, wait, and when the drip happened he'd reach out and try to grab it. Then he'd wait some more. We had read about fountains being a good idea for cats, so we bought one.
Most of the cats were interested. They laid down a foot or so away from it, folded their paws under themselves and watched the stream. A few of them hung out closer. Most of them love it.
Not the faucet chaser. He was scared to death of it. Even when I tried to hold him in my lap and sit next to it to show him it wasn't bad, he'd claw me to shreds to get away (and run to his precious faucet. Geez.)
We kept the fountain running and he kept his distance. We provided a few bowls of fresh water so he could drink without having a stroke and he seemed fine with this. I think it's been about 5 or 6 years since we got that fountain and only in the past year or so has he drank from it.
I don't think it helps that when our asthmatic cat isn't feeling his best he digs up the water. He loves the fountain and will lay by it, but when he's not feeling good he splashes the water everywhere. If he does this overnight, the fountain runs low and gets louder as the little motor huffs and puffs, so that might have something to do with it
We've looked at getting a bigger one, but most of the ones I see have a picture of a 5 week old Lab puppy drinking out of it to make it look bigger than it really is. We need industrial sized

 

[jisaacson214]

I bought a water fountain for my girls after I noticed they would only drink from the leaky faucet in the bathroom that my landlord hasn’t fixed. I got the Drinkwell Platinum fountain on amazon & they took to it right away. Now they drink from it fairly regularly, but not as often as the leaky bathroom faucet.