Suggestion on how to deal with water...

[Louie-Louie]

We have ceramic water dishes which Louie or the dogs cant move but have to have another dish underneath to catch the overflow when Louie is in a stir the water round mode at least he cant sit in the big one now

[Miss Kitty]

Chester likes to dip his paws in the water. He can't move his bowl without a struggle as it has a rubber rim at the base of it, so it sticks in the spot where it's placed. This seems to work.

[Heather2mc]

I have a water fountain outside they can splash around in surrounded with pebbles and I also have a big rubber based bowl in the ensuite bathroom.

Sarah plays less in the water now but Zack puts his foot in it when he drinks and splashes it around the bathroom the rest of the time - at least it is on the tiles and there is a drain!!

[Bubbies]

Thank you all for the fantastic suggestion, I will buy a water fountain this weekend. He loves getting his paws wet then use his litter tray. We end up with hundreds of little grey paw prints on the dark wood floor. He just chirp at us when he sees the mop

[Helen & John]

Ours is a Hagen Cat it one, there is a mat you can also buy which holds it in place. The fountain sort of clips into it.

I like that it holds a couple of litres so you know they will not run out of water when you are out.

[Menolly]

Ha! We had to take the spigots off the taps in the utility because Hobbes kept turning them on so he could get a drink! This is despite having three water bowls and a washing up bowl in the utility sink full of fresh water AND one of those neat Water Fountain affairs.
Spike cuddles the water bowl, but doesn't dip his paws in; Whisper paddles with just one paw and then leaves little one-legged paw prints all over the kitchen floor. Hobbes has been in the shower with my husband..........and I still maintain that the best way to get a guy to put the lid down on the loo is to get a kitten! All of our have tried to slurp toilet water in the past!
It's just a Maine Coon "thing", I guess!

[mcguy]

I do have to warn anyone buying a fountain that while your cats may love them, you may grow to hate cleaning the darn things. They definitely tend to get mold growing in them and bits of food and hair can get into the pumps, so you periodically need to completely disassemble them (including disassembling the pump) and clean them well. One of ours is much easier to clean than the other, and this is something I would pay attention to when purchasing another one. I have found that ours can go only 3-4 days between minor cleanings (replacing all the water), and at least every two weeks you need to clean them quite well. The biggest pain is taking apart the pumps, but one of ours also has lots of little crevices in the top that get mold growth and are almost impossible to remove. You will almost certainly need brushes such as those sold specifically for the fountains. I cannot understand how not a single fountain that I have seen has a filter before the pump, to prevent debris from being sucked into the pump. They all have these "filters" that are mainly designed to remove chlorine, but do almost nothing about debris in the water.

Another consideration is that there are different designs in terms of water flow. Some just have water bubbling up, some allow it to flow down a slide, and others have a stream splashing into the base. I refuse to have a noisy splashing one, but we have one of each of the others, as two of our MCs like the bubbling action and one likes the flow. I actually took the top off the flow one so that it also has bubbling action. Thus, two of our cats will use both, one cat never ever uses the bubbling only fountain, and our fourth MC never uses either of the fountains (she like bowls in the sink).

I definitely feel they get our MCs to drink more water, but they are rather a pain!

[Bubbies]

sounds like a lot of work to clean it...i do a fair amount of pumps clean up already with our rather large reef aquarium. Might have to try the large ceramic dog bowl

[jckkerrison]

Have to agree with NCarver they do take some looking after,we originally had one out in the cat pen,another in the hallway & a third in their room,the only one remaining is their room all the others we replaced with good old water bowls....
We tried a couple but ended up with the Catit fountain as they seemed to prefer having the choice of lapping off the dome or using the water bowl part,I have never added the food bowl part included as whatever you put in it would have ended up all awash. They do like it though & Bruce very often wanders past all the water bowls to use it although being a very precious MC he doesn't like paddling in the water left around the bowls by the others.
As for the cleaning I am very lucky as being female I don't really understand the mechanics of these things{who said that} it takes me several attempts to fill the dome & get it back in the right place, Wellynton Boots & hubby get very frustrated watching me,Welly because he loves to chase all those extra air bubbles that come up when you first switch it back on & hubby because " I would have had it done in seconds" .Now come on ladies,it does help to look a bit confused on some occasions doesn't it ?
I go by the motto that when it helps to appear thick,use it.....! because yes getting your little brush into those small places does take a bit of time.....

[Scrapdragon]

My solution was to put the cat water dishes outside... Gryfn plays in them... we have one water bowl inside but he doesn't tend to play in that one as much as they can go outside all day and play in the other bowls...
There's nothing more fun that his wet paws but when he wants a cuddle...