Getting cat to used Drinkwell fountain?? (kitten, eating, male, smells)

[movintime]

She looks & smells around it for awhile now -- yet never drinks from it (that I've caught her/seen.)

Any ideas how to assist her drinking from it?

[Lola4]

Ours pretty much just played in the fountain. There favorite thing to do was to "sink" their toys.

I think you are a wet food feeder... correct? Water is a LOT less of an issue because the cats are getting moisture from their food. (I also add a little water to their food...just in case.)

[flkingfan]

My one girl started drinking from it right away as she loved the faucet. The other 2 eventually started using it, I would say within a week, they use the bowl part. I have a food bowl next to it, so not sure if that helped with the other 2 getting use to it.

[greg42]

How long has it been? Could take several days. She may eventually drink right from the stream, or not, but maybe at least from the bowl. Mine seemed to have stopped drinking from the stream for a while but now every so often I catch her drinking from it again. She's eating more wet food now so perhaps that has changed her drinking habits a bit. The other cat (no longer with us) who was really old when we got her one (at least 16, maybe 17) never would use the Drinkwell, even after we got a separate one. (Yes, I have two Drinkwells, and now just one cat. Makes for easy cleaning process though now that I'm alternating them. )

[catsmom21]

I did not have any success with the water fountain I bought last summer for my one cat that is fed a kibble (prescription) diet. I've tried several times with it now.

When the kitten came, she used the fountain at first and I thought she would teach the other cat, but it was not to be, and now that the kitten is on an all canned diet she stopped using the fountain all together, so it's been put away.

[tomkat26]

I have always had cats that were excited at the fountain part. They use it every day. Are you making sure that is there only source of water, they may be ignoring it if they have a bowl of water elsewhere that they are drinking from.

[Alinka]

tomcat makes a good point and it is one I did not think of years ago. That was, in part because my cats took to the fountain very quickly. I do not have one now, but notice that the water bowl in my bathroom vanity area needs refreshing much more often than the one in the kitchen area. They are filled from different faucets but otherwise are the same bowl type from the same water source.

Thinking about it: the one in the kitchen is next to their moist food bowls and the one in the bathroom area is "freestanding". Hmmm?

[beachmouse]

I read somewhere that cats don't like their food and water sources too close together. And based on personal experimentation after that, it seems to be true with my two.

[ErikCortez]

A friend of mine has a couple of Drinkwells: her one cat waits till someone fills it up before using it. And for weird, that cat prefers the older one.

[subject2change]

Nothing ever goes right. My male cat likes drinking from a trickle in the faucet so I bought a fountain Saturday. For some reason both cats pounced in and started drinking from the bowl, before I'd even finished filling the reservoir/turned it on. They loved it, don't know why. I plugged it in....it didn't come on. The motor was defective. So today I exchanged it, filled it, no one was around, I turned it on. And they're both scared of it. Both ran away from it. I've unplugged it so hopefully they can get used to it as a regular bowl of wateragain. Why do things get so difficult with cats? I guess that's part of their charm though.