Shaddy's weird water dish behaviors

[jewelsf]

My cat shaddy has 2 weird water dish behaviors. has anyone else observed these behaviors in their cats, or does anyone know why she does these things?
1. When she drinks, often she will dip her paw into the water and then lick the water off of her paw.

2. She likes to put things in the water. She will put cat toys in it. She put a stray plastic grocery bag in it once. Today i found one of those furry mice in it.

J

[Traci]

As for #1, completely normal, she is either playing or testing depth perception.

As for #2, it depends, is the water dish kept clean at all times and filled fresh more than once a day? If not, she might drag toys or drop food into the dish to get your attention. Or, if she's playing with toys nearby, they will inevitably end up by or in the water dish by accident. (envision her tossing mice in the air or being very rambunctious, those mice can fly you know)

[Cleo]

The majority of my cats here do the same thing with regard to "testing" the water with their paw. I'll also find the occasional toy mouse or jingle ball in it.

BUT ... my Simon is completely obnoxious when it comes to pawing at the tray underneath the water dishes. He paws and paws until he pulls it far away from where it's supposed to be thus resulting in water spilling all over the place. Of course, this is why I have the tray because he does it to the bowls as well. At least this way, the tray catches most of the water but again, it's obnoxious. No sooner than fresh water is available for everyone, he's making a mess and I'll have to refill two or three times as well as give stern NO's and water bottle squirts.

He also has this fascination with the faucet in the bathroom sink. He feels the need to rub the sides of his face over the bottom of the faucet numerous times. Sometimes I'll turn the water on a slow drip thinking he wants a drink ... nope, he just wants some faucet love *LOL*

I can't complain too much I guess ... well sure I can ... but at least it's only water.

Good luck.

[jewelsf]

Shaddy likes to use her paw to remove pieces of food from the food dish as well. Sometimes she will play with the food, batting and chasing it around. She is the only one of the three cats who does these particular weird things, but then each of them has some sort of weird behavior. Meshach, the queen of the bunch, likes the faucet in the bathtub. She will lick it. *beep* likes to lick the tiles in the bathtub surround after someone has taken a shower. Cats are definately weird!

J

[doubleR]

We have 4 boys and 2 of them have water fixations also. Izak loves to drop fuzzy balls in the water dish, and Rusty loves to fish them out. He will play for hours on end at the bathroom sink and drink from it on a slow drip.

He ALSO moves a bowl of water all over the sink making a mess several times a day We keep that one and a big bowl in the kitchen for them and change them both a couple times a day. While our oldest sits content so close while drinking his chest is ringing wet when done, and never spills a drop.

I even bought em one of those fancy water fountains once but they insisted on playing too much with it and kept pulling out the water resovour(sp) constantly. I ended it when we woke up one morning and it was out again on the floor and the filter and charcoal all over

[jewelsf]

we bought one of those fountains too, but it was a pain in the you know what. there were some design flaws with it for one thing, and honestly it was a lot harder to keep fresh and clean than a regular bowl. SO... we sold it on craigslist and the cats have a regular bowl again. I don't miss having to constantly unplug and disassemble that thing to clean it. its actually when we got that thing that Shaddy started her behavior of putting things in the water.

J

[Victoria]

My cat Cleo is funny about water too She used to ONLY drink out of a glass or a faucet and wouldn't touch water in a bowl but now I have moved in with someone else who has a cat (they get along fine) they each have a double plastic bowl, one side for food and the other for water. She still licks the faucet hopefully sometimes LOL. Also if there is a choice of some old, stale water with fur in it and new, freshly poured water she prefers the skanky stuff! She is like that with toms. When she was mating (before she was sterilized) she seemed to go for the drooling, cross eyed one and didn't like any nicelooking ones. I've always said she is a strange cat!

[Auntie Debbie]

Over the years I've had my share of paws and toys in the water...that's very common, also sometimes messy!

Please be careful though with those plastic bags. Always pet them away or in the garbage pronto. A cat can easily get its head in the handles. My Sals did that once, spooked her and she tore through the apartment with it, crashing into walls and furniture until I was able to catch her and remove it. Luckily she wasn't really hurt, but she could have been or even strangled with it.