Catly pondering

[amethyst73]

The outdoor cats have their very own water dish, out in the garage. 

Yet despite the fact that I try to keep it filled with fresh, clean water (with mixed success, due to the fact that the coons like to play in it!), we regularly observe the outdoor kitties drinking from other sources, including pools of rainwater that has collected in various places (empty flowerpots, dirty saucers under occupied flowerpots, on top of the old hot tub cover) and dew (particularly off the anodized cast-iron porch furniture and new hot tub cover).

Admittedly, because their official dish is in the garage, we can't observe whether they drink from that or not.  But given the proximity of the water dish to the other sources of water that they drink from, my conclusion is that they prefer these distinctly not-clean sources of water.  Why is this, I wonder?

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Cats are really really into water that smells freshly poured, probably because they can tell how long it's been standing and they evolved not to trust standing water because it's more likely to be contaminated. Dew and rainwater will appeal to them, even if the vessel is weird. The solution to this is to make a drip of water available, give them access to a recirculating fountain, or obviously and frequently replace the water in their dish where they can see or hear the splashing. I just read a book on cat behavior, and the author mentioned she had a cat who liked to dunk messy stuff in her water. Eventually she realized the cat was doing it on purpose to get her to change the water more often and she started changing the water twice a day. Cat stopped dunking stuff in water and started drinking more. (The book is CatSmart. It's amazingly sensible. I didn't think there were non-flaky cat behavior books out there, but this one was great.)

Oz is more likely to drink out of a basin within half an hour of it being dumped and refilled, and he loves drinking out of sinks, faucets, and tubs. I've just started playing along: water bowl by the bath that I refill after my shower and at night, a drip of water in the tub while I'm getting dressed in the morning, etc.

[karakara98.livejournal.com]

I've read similar things about cats liking dripping sources of water. I've also heard the explanation that cat's don't like "clean" water in the bowls because it can smell of chemicals either from water treatment or from cleaning. If the water is in the garage, is it near something that may not be so tasty, like cleaning chemicals or motor oil etc? THat could also be putting the cats off.

Good luck!

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Not particularly. This being California, nobody actually keeps their cars in the garage - it's much too valuable as storage space, and it's not like your vehicle is going to get snowed on or anything like that. We might have a bottle of windshield wiper fluid, but it's on some shelves that are several feet away from the water-dish spot.

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Huh. The 'fresh' water makes a certain amount of sense; I think the times I've specifically noticed the cats drinking from a plant pot saucer is right after I've obviously and noisily put water in it in summertime.

Thanks for the reference; I'll have to look that up.