Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/24/keep-your-pets-hydrated-with-a.html
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Great in theory.
In practice, my cat Angus rewrote the headline:
“Keep your pets hydrated kitchen floor wet with a gravity waterer”
Update: granted, he enjoyed it as a cat toy.
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We used to use one of these, until we realized that cleaning them was a pain.
Instead, we now use a flower fountain from Catit:
It’s incredibly easy to clean, and the filter takes care of all that kitty saliva that inevitably gets added to the water. It’s big enough for our three cats, and holds a ton of water.
Great thing about it is it has three different “modes” depending on whether or not you put the white flower in, and whether or not you put the yellow “cap” on the flower - removing either of those changes the flow if you have cats that prefer to lick from running streams, or bubbling water, or just from the basin directly.
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I bought one of these the last time it was featured in BB. My 3 cats won’t touch it.
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The problem I have with these for cats is that many cats that eat dry kibble exclusively are already low-grade dehydrated. Historically, they get most of the water they need from the fluids of the creatures they kill, so drinking enough water to make up for it isn’t part of their behavioral makeup. The water in these containers gets stale and nasty fast - do you like to drink from water that’s been sitting out? Cats tend to be fussy about such things, so a fountain or fresh water every day is the healthiest practice when possible.
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When you have a pet, never forget to give him/her fresh water every day. This thing is invented for lazy people, not for animals.
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I have two similar devices; they have a (bad) tendency to collect stray hair, food particles, and crud, and generally need to have the water in the bowl itself changed out every week; the reservoir also tends to collect crud as well, and those are something of a pain to wash out and sanitize.
I also have a fountain (one of the DrinkWell Pagaoda models), and while I also have to change the water every week on it (one of my furkids has a drooling problem) it’s easier to keep clean. and the cats actually drink out of it enough that I end up putting upwards of a quart of water a day into it.
I have a huge one of these for my dog, who’s about 50lbs, and she hates it. Only because of the gurgling noise it makes scares the bejesus out of her. She’s scared of the hollow sounds plastic jugs and whatnot make. Weird I know, but if anyone wants one, drop me a line if you live on teh left coast.
Same here. Not about buying after a BB post, but I got one at our local farm supply store as a back up before going on a long trip (in case the pet sitter died unexpectedly or something?) and the cats hated it. It’s too big and the gurgling is scary and the water in the bowl gets furry faster than it gets drunk.
I had water on the floor with anything, because I think my older cat has bad eyesight, and has to shove the bowl to see the water shift. I switched to a dog bowl, and despite being a bit harder to stand over, it won’t tip, no matter how much she shoves it.
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I have something like this and my dogs love it. We have a giant one for our house and a smaller one that we take camping.
I don’t get how this would even work for cats since gravity doesn’t seem to apply to them.
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As a veterinarian, I can assure you that this simply is not true. It’s a very popular opinion, shared all over the internet, and by a pain in the ass colleague as well, but cats do get thirsty and drink just like any other mammal. There are desert animals that do get all their moisture from the food they eat, but domestic cats aren’y one of them.
As for these gravity waterers, my cats seem to like them, but I second that they’re a bit of a pain to keep clean. If you get ones that are dishwasher safe, and have 2 (so you can switch them out), it makes life a lot easier.
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I stand corrected, thank you. I shall endeavor to prevent the further spread of misinformation.
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No prob. It’s one of the more popular bits of misinformation out there (and very believable since elderly cats are prone to renal failure). Doesn’t help much that there’s a veterinarian out there pushing the “wet food only, cat’s won’t drink enough to prevent chronic low grade dehydration” thing either. Unfortunately, you can find someone with a degree to back almost any idea.
One of the others I hear often is “corn has no nutritional value, it basically passes through undigested” (which seems believable if you’ve ever eaten corn on the cob and not chewed well…). But when ground, and then used in pet foods, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do; provide calories. Yeah, there’s not a lot of other nutrients, but it’s really good at providing relatively empty calories.
There are tons of “facts” that just aren’t.
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This. And change their water dish every couple of days. Seriously, it’s not that hard, people.
I have the catit water fountain one too. Got a puzzle feeder at the same time and my tuxedo fat arse has actually lost weight with the system, so I’m happy.
She’s cute, but she’s an idiot.
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