will a raised bowl keep the cats out? (male, kidney, drinks)
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My cats have always liked to play in their water bowl making a mess every time. Sometimes they put their paws in and lick the water off them, sometimes they try to tip the bowl over. To combat this, I just put a little bit of water in the bowl. That has been working fine.
Now we have a dog too. The cats have taken to playing with HIS water! He drinks a lot more than the cats so I need to keep it filled up. I was thinking about getting one of those raised bowls. Do you think that will keep the cats out of it? Any other suggestions to keep them from making a mess with his water?
You should never limit the amount of water given a cat. Cats don't have a high thirst drive and you should be encouraging them to play in the water bowl as often as possible!
Put a large un-tippable water bowl on a tray with raised edges, or even in a shallow plastic tote box (large enough for the cats to stand in while they are at the water bowl) so any water spilled is contained in the tray. When you freshen the water every day, just tip out the water in the tray also.
we also use water bubblers. When I had a cat that played with the water in her dish.. I got a small tray (might have been a small litter box or small dish pan) and set the water bowl in that. She could still reach the water, even if occasionally she had to step into the tray. She also stopped playing with the water!
btw, are you sure they're just playing with the water and not testing to see where the water level is? It's awfully difficult to see water level in a bowl with limited eyesight. That same cat also used to float a little red plastic ring in her bowl. No matter how many times I took it out, she'd put it back in! that's all she wanted was it to float there. I think it was telling her where the water level was.
we also use water bubblers. When I had a cat that played with the water in her dish.. I got a small tray (might have been a small litter box or small dish pan) and set the water bowl in that. She could still reach the water, even if occasionally she had to step into the tray. She also stopped playing with the water!
btw, are you sure they're just playing with the water and not testing to see where the water level is? It's awfully difficult to see water level in a bowl with limited eyesight. That same cat also used to float a little red plastic ring in her bowl. No matter how many times I took it out, she'd put it back in! that's all she wanted was it to float there. I think it was telling her where the water level was.
I've read that cats cannot see where the surface of still water is, which makes sense to me. Mine have a bowl with the "water cooler" bottle dispenser into a dish, and my male cat will always drink from the far side (getting his ruff wet) where the water feeds into the bowl. Or he dips his paws in and licks them dry. Maybe I'll try putting a floater in the bowl, see what the reaction is.
I was chatting with my neighbor who said their 12yr old cat always dipped a paw into the water dish before drinking - they had no idea why she would 'wash her hand'. I figure she's probably checking to see where the water level was!
But back to the OP: the easiest thing is to simply put a walled 'tray' under the water dish to catch anything being played with or slobbered.
Be a little careful with the splashing and an older cat. The other cat we had for a while eventually splashed her water bowl no matter what we did. She also turned out to have kidney disease. I believe I've read the two may be associated sometimes....
As for original question, you could try the fountain for the cats. This may have the effect of stopping them splashing. It depends upon how much they take to the fountain. Our one old splashing cat never took to her fountain at all. Amber who is still with us loves her fountain and always drinks right from the running water stream now.
The raised bowl for the dog wouldn't be a bad idea either, especially if it's a larger dog which would get the bowl up pretty high and probably be more comfy for him. But of course it'll never be high enough for the cats not to jump on it.
Interesting thing about water level: one of the people at the shelter once told me it was best to keep the cats' water bowls topped up really high. The diameter of these (I guess about 4-5") is such that they don't want to put their face in too far because their whiskers will touch the sides, she said. I don't deal with this at home because of the fountain, but I wonder if this comes into play at all with a typical bowl? It may if it's narrow and deep enough. The last regular water bowls I used a few years ago were wide and shallow stainless with those no-tip flares at the bottom. Didn't help with the splashing cat of course; the bowl doesn't tip but she still could splash a decent volume of water out of it, and nothing would deter her! For her I got a plastic boot tray to put the bowl in. (It's a tray about a foot or so wide and maybe 2-2.5 feet long, and an inch deep.) Only trouble with that was she was sometimes prone to drinking directly from that tray after she had splashed some water out of the bowl.
To your raised water dish question for the dog to keep the cat out - No, it probably wont help. LOL - my aunts cat LOVES the raised water dish. He looks like he's bellied up to the bar splashing around in the dogs water! She dumps it several times a day to keep it clean - all you can do.
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