Health
How I Finally Got Luna to Drink More Water
For the first several months of having Luna, her water bowl was essentially decorative.
She walked past it. She ignored it. On one occasion she sat in it, which suggested she understood it was there but had a different interpretation of its purpose.
I began to worry she was not getting enough water. Then I started reading about how cats actually hydrate, and realised I had misunderstood the whole thing.
Cats are not built to drink like dogs
Cats evolved in arid environments. Their natural prey — small mammals and birds — is about seventy percent water. In the wild, they would get most of their hydration through food, not from drinking.
This means a cat eating mostly wet food may barely drink from a water bowl at all, and be completely fine. A cat eating mostly dry food, on the other hand, needs to compensate by drinking more — and many do not do this adequately.
The food was the actual issue
When I was feeding Luna primarily dry food, she was not compensating with enough water intake. When I introduced more wet food into her diet, the water bowl concern essentially resolved itself.
This is the thing I wish someone had told me at the start: if your cat does not drink much and eats wet food, they are probably fine. If they do not drink much and eat dry food, that is worth addressing.
The cat water intake calculator accounts for diet type when estimating how much your cat should be drinking — a much more useful starting point than a generic guideline.
Things that helped beyond the food change
Moving the water bowl away from the food made a noticeable difference. Cats instinctively prefer their water source to be separate from their food — in nature, food and water in the same spot can indicate contamination.
Refreshing the water more frequently helped. Cats notice when water has been sitting for a while, even when it looks fine to us.
A wider, shallower bowl was also better received. Cats' whiskers are sensitive to stimulation from narrow bowls — a wide bowl means they can drink without their whiskers touching the sides.
The water fountain experiment
I tried a water fountain because I had read that cats prefer moving water.
Mango took to it immediately and has used it ever since. Luna investigated it for three days and then returned to the bowl. Pickles was offended by the noise and made her feelings known.
The fountain works for some cats and not others. Worth trying, but not a universal solution. If your cat ignores it, they are not broken.