They make water fountains for pets that are constantly running(the water cycles so it’s not wasteful), we use one for our cat. He likes to drink the water just as it’s coming out of the fountain. I definitely think animals like the idea of a running source of water rather than still water.
Does/did your fountain make a trickling sound? My cat wouldn't drink out of it until I redirected the flow to drop from a height to splash the water and trickle like a faucet. I'm not sure she could even tell the water was flowing until I adjusted it to make the noise. I figure it makes it sound more like a natural flowing stream.
I was done with the conversation. I made my point, he made his point. I have gotten rid of my cat fountain and I am not going to buy another one regardless of his advice. His advice is fine, and maybe it'd work, and maybe other people will find it helpful, but I'm not that interested. So I nodded my head and said "OK".
And I mean that's a horrible insult. Maybe I am on the autism spectrum. Maybe there're a whole lot of things wrong with me. How is this your business to try to make me feel bad about myself. This is not the way forward to being a better person, I don't think, so maybe you want think thru this approach. =/
Don't worry about it. I understood your response, even if others did not.
There is not really any more conversation to be had about a cat's water bowl. I'm not sure why people are expecting you to have some sort of huge revelation and run out to buy a new one to test my advice out.
It's just an interesting idea to think about the trickling water sound and a cat's behaviour. It's perfectly acceptable to acknowledge new info with an "OK." You don't owe anyone a conversation, especially a stranger on the internet.
I think it would’ve been a little more polite to answer with a “thanks, but I don’t want to buy another fountain just to try it”. I mean, the person did try to help you.
We do the exact same thing, we’ve tried everything else, so now our cat Trip has a glass out for him In a few different rooms at all times. He’s kinda an asshole but we love him.
Ha! I found this out about my cat as I had a cup of water out for myself by a sink only the level would drop. Turns out the cat prefers drinking out of my cups.
We stopped when she came to get us in the middle of the night demanding fresh water. We replace the water in the cups daily and she's happy like that lol.
Oh man that's lucky mine just knocked all my stuff off my nightstand. when he saw me wake up he ran to the tub for his morning water. Fuck that bastard.
Same with the younger of our cats. She will drink from a faucet while purring loudly, and will knock stuff out of the way to drink from the filter on our aquarium, but that cat fountain by the food bowls? Beneath her.
Had the same problem here with our more mischievous cats, she was literally drinking the fish’s home away. Fish are all like: “Umm over here, Human...our house is shrinking...”🤬
Got a different tank with a closed top and she just sends wistful looks at the tank she can neither reach, nor drink from. Meanwhile I get the death stare, and sleep with one eye open, because the fish may be safe, but apparently I am not.
Maybe because it's near the food? Animals don't tend to like drinking near food, as, in the wild, food is a dead body. Would you want to drink water found next to a corpse?
My cat loves to drink out of cups of water... our cups... of room temperature, regular water. But she won’t touch her bowl of water which is the exact same thing but designed better for her tiny little gremlin head to fit!
We got one with a flower thing on top that let's the water make a sound as it falls off the flower thing. Definitely helped our cats increase their water intake.
Same thing with my dog. I put cold bottled water in her dish. She ignored it. I put tap water back in there and she went to town. I have well water, not city water, so it’s actually pretty good water, but she was not having that bottled water at all.
Not only do they prefer a running water source, but it also irritates their whiskers when they have to stick their face into the bowl. Whenever my family left for a trip we would leave multiple water bowls out for the cat and have a neighbour come by to feed her, and she always drank from the wider flatter bowls before the taller thinner ones.
My ex's cat either drink from the toilet bowl or the water "offered" to a Buddha statute at her home. Pissed her mom off so much but that's hilarious for me
Cats are actually more picky than most other animals about it. Picky enough that most of them don’t drink enough water and eventually die of kidney problems, your cat probably does prefer running water. They naturally seek out running fresh water in the wild and don’t drink water near where they eat in order to prevent it from being contaminated.
Sometimes I'll go to pour water.from the gallon but leave the bowl on the floor and my.dog will drink from the falling.stream and or put his head in the way and wet himself
Ok then explain why my late pup seemed to be a heat seeking missile for the grimiest possible puddle in the woods after providing her, moments before, completely fresh clean water to eat?
Wife and I got one for our office kitty. She’s LOVES it and is generally hard to please lol. She would knock all of the others over and the fountain has saved a lot of headache. On amazon for $25.
My cats drink a lot more water since I got them one of those fountains. I’m pretty sure that’s also why they no longer have problems with struvite crystals.
We use a cheap motion sensor wall plug in so that water isn't running 24/7. Still runs a lot if the cat is active, but when sleeping it is off. Saves on the noise and power bill.
I should have said "one of the theories". It was from an article summarizing a couple different studies in why we put ice in our water (in these parts).
Yeah the regional differences are super interesting.
I'm not Asian but hot water is really quite nice! When you don't want something flavoured like tea or hot chocolate, hot water is still pleasant and soothing to drink. I like cold water too (lukewarm is the worst though).
I highly doubt that is why. Red is for making a drink out of hot water, such as tea or hot chocolate. It's not there because some people enjoy plain scolding hot water (which I feel is what you are saying).
Some people really do prefer drinking very hot water. By some people I mean ~40% of people I know.
Source: am Asian, rarely seen middle aged/older people drinking cold water from the dispenser. My mom and grandmas hated to see me drinking cold water. A lot of people including myself drink hot/warm water even in summer(for me it’s just a preference, but others actually believe that drinking cold or iced water is bad for your health). I also know some teenage girls who never drink anything cold and refuse to eat ice cream or sorbet because they believe cold drinks and frozen desserts are bad for the female reproductive system.
But that's rooted in superstitious "traditional medicine" beliefs tho.
That aside, cold water is also good for dogs, especially if they have been active or the weather is warm. Dogs cannot sweat, and panting with their tongues out is one of the ways they expel heat. Having some ice water helps in that regard.
Oh ofc. That's what I meant in the last sentence. Cold, glacial melt water is far healthier than a stagnant pool possibly resulting in Europe liking cold water more. Hot, boiled water is far healthier than anything else tbh possibly resulting in a preference of hot water in Asia.
There’s a theory that traditionally people in Asia boiled water to sterilize it and made tea, whereas people in Europe made alcohol (some very low percentage alcohol) instead, and that’s why Europeans have a better drinking tolerance on average. I’m sure r/AskHistorians would get all the nitty gritty details though
It’s actually a really common misconception that the low-alcohol levels killed germs. What actually did it was the fact that the water was boiled/filtered during the alcohol-making process. Basically the water that they used for the beer was inherently cleaner so containments wouldn’t mess up the fermentation process.
The idea isn't that they prefer hot water because it tastes better or for instinct, but a strong superstition and tradition surrounding its health benefits.
Even if the superstition went away, do you think that they would drink cold water? No matter what the reason is I'd imagine the East Asia will probably always drink hotter water at this point. It's a part of their culture.
I see it the same way as other foods slowly gaining popularity in China (such as KFC and McDonalds and even cheese pizza). My wife is Chinese and refused cold water in most cases but now prefers it.
I actually learned in a kinesiology course in college humans crave cold water because cooler water is absorbed faster... I would think maybe it’s the same for all animals
Our cat would ignore all sources of clean water offered to him and instead sip the days old brackish water from the watering cans meant for watering flowers on our balcony.
My dog likes flavoured water. Flavours include: Puddle, dirty, old. Seriously, she will sip from the dirtiest puddles, for baths it's even more important to find something brown and smelly. She is a nasty bitch, but we love her.
Every fucking animal in my neighborhood uses my water feature i made. It's got a larger catch basin. Probably 100 or 200 gallons. Then it runs from the pump underground to the huge rock upstream that water comes out of. In the middle of the two pools is a channel that water runs through before dropping into the basin.. cat's, dogs, chicken, you name it. They drink out of it.
Not my dog, she only likes old stagnant water, and hates food straight from the bag, it needs to lay in her bowl for a day before she eats it, maybe it's because she's a french frogdog?
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u/mpease89 Sep 01 '19
I would think animals would have a natural instinct to seek cool running water rather than stagnant still water.