I could use some #cat advice around drinking.
My cat has always had issues with it. Usually wanting to drink from sources I can neither give her permanent access to nor guarantee being safe to drink. Specifically the shower, bathroom sink and watering cans.
We got around that for most of the time we've had her, by switching between various large water bowls and changing positions. (sometimes giving her an array to chose from and then using the winner onwards)
For some extra background: she has a chronic #cat cold and cannot smell. (was still sick when we adopted and we nursed her back to health)
As a result she often does not seem to recognise food in her bowl/plate or water for that matter - often carefully dipping her nose in it several times and getting startled each time touching it - as if to measure the exact height to drink at.
And she probably also doesn't like her whiskers touching the rim, because wider bowls worked better.
Anyway, the various bowls started getting more difficult to entice drinking as well - so I got a cat fountain last year. Specifically the lucky kitty #cat fountain. Because it offered multiple different drinking positions, dishwasher safe ceramic and a silent pump. (that one has to be cleaned by hand weekly unfortunately)
And it worked! initially
She immediately drank from the pit at the bottom. And kept drinking a lot regularly. But at the end of the year she drank a lot less again.
So I figured the drinking pit must be too small and tight to stick her whiskers into. And while she has tried booping the fountain source and stair flow with her nose, it seems to have too much movement for her to try drinking from it.
Then I tried a makeshift fountain of two bowls and the pump. A large outside bowl pumping into a smaller bowl that overflows back into the large one, creating a big flat #cat drinking friendly surface.
That too worked for a while, but now that I am regularly watering plants again she much prefers the watering cans.
Because the makeshift #cat fountain was extremely loud, difficult to handle and now not even being used I have stopped using that as well.
I don't really know what to try next 🤔
@YinYinFalcon I asked a good friend of mine that is quite experimented with cats. She said that not drinking a lot is normal behavior, but you have to compensate that by giving them some wet food each day to prevent dehydration. So, clean water source (she mentioned filtered fountains as an example) + wet food?
@glomzubuk It's just things like this: freshly cleaned water container she used to drink from on the right and almost empty watering can on the left. She has already booped her nose on the water surface, but decides to try and crawl into the watering can instead. (in an attempt to drink there she puts a leg into it, but still can't reach the water - almost toppling everything over)
So I end up emptying the container into the watering can to raise the level and she happily drinks from it ...
@glomzubuk thanks! She does eat a lot more wet food recently, because the dry food she used to eat doesn't stay in anymore (she still likes to eat various dry food, but immediately barfs it back out - so it's wet only now) thinking about that she was less picky about the water source after loosing so much through barfing - maybe I don't need to be that worried