Why Are My Cats Obsessed With Drinking From the Toilet??

[ReeseTheBeast]

I had one of those ‘water cooler’ type waterers for my cats (similar to this), and they wouldn’t drink out of it, instead preferring the water from the toilets in my house.

I thought that maybe the plastic the waterer was made out of may have been making the water taste or smell funny. And I also noticed that despite cleaning it just about every day, it got pretty grimey and slimy very fast.

So then I got them this bowl- nice, large, ceramic- that is cleaned and refilled with fresh water twice a day. Lovely, right?

Well, they still prefer drinking out of the toilet.

:sigh: :rolleyes:

I mean, dogs and cats have been drinking out of toilets since the beginning of time with no ill effects that I’m aware of (assuming there are no cleaning chemicals or hanging toilet bowl cleaners of course)… So I’m assuming that I should just let it go. But I wanted to check in with others to hear their thoughts. Am I totally missing something here? Is there something I should be doing differently?

[paulaedwina]

Close the lid on the toilet. Cats like fresh moving water. Some people leave a faucet dripping into a pan and the cats drink from the drip or the pan.

Paula

[BasqueMom]

…because they are cats.

[Diamondindykin]

Mine are obsessed with the bath tub:yes: We have a big jacuzzi tub and anytime we are in the bathroom we have to turn the facet on so they can drink and chase the water. 3 out of the 5 cats that I have do this…cats are really strange if you think about it:lol:

[HenryisBlaisin]

Who knows why…they’re cats. It’s not ideal, but like Paula said, just shut the lid. As long as you don’t have any of those continuous cleaning chemicals in there, the occasional toilet dive won’t hurt them.

One of mine doesn’t drink out of the toilet but if he’s in the bathroom when you flush, he comes running to watch it. He also likes to watch the bathtub fill.

Another one prefers the dog’s water bowl to the cats’.

There’s no accounting for taste, apparently.

[Kadenz]

I guess I have weird pets. Two dogs, a cat, and not one drinks out of the toilet. So strange!

Anyway, I say just close the toilet bowl. That should stop him, unless he’s one of those evil-smart felines.

[wireweiners]

[QUOTE=HenryisBlaisin’;6092057]
Who knows why…they’re cats. It’s not ideal, but like Paula said, just shut the lid. As long as you don’t have any of those continuous cleaning chemicals in there, the occasional toilet dive won’t hurt them.

One of mine doesn’t drink out of the toilet but if he’s in the bathroom when you flush, he comes running to watch it. He also likes to watch the bathtub fill.

Another one prefers the dog’s water bowl to the cats’.

There’s no accounting for taste, apparently.[/QUOTE]

My calico likes the washing machine. She jumps up on the edge while its filling and if you open the machine after its running, she has to jump up there and watch the laundry spinning. I’m always afraid she’s going to fall in.

[RougeEmpire]

I have a water loving Turkish Van cat. He thinks the toilet is the magic fun bowl! …I keep the toilet lid shut.

[dalpal]

[QUOTE=HenryisBlaisin’;6092057]
Who knows why…they’re cats. It’s not ideal, but like Paula said, just shut the lid. As long as you don’t have any of those continuous cleaning chemicals in there, the occasional toilet dive won’t hurt them.

One of mine doesn’t drink out of the toilet but if he’s in the bathroom when you flush, he comes running to watch it. He also likes to watch the bathtub fill.

Another one prefers the dog’s water bowl to the cats’.

There’s no accounting for taste, apparently.[/QUOTE]

LOL…my young male does this as well. He can be downstairs and if he hears a flush, in 10 seconds he’s under your feet. And he occasionally toilet dives as well. I only use Dawn Dishwashing detergent to clean my toliets just to be extra safe. It really sucks when you have to pee really badly and find the cat hunched over the toilet drinking…:mad::mad::lol::lol:

[eventer_mi]

They like the running water. Your former waterer probably let the water go stale (in the container), so that even though it was constantly flowing into the bowl, it wasn’t circulating and aerating. The toilet bowl water is fresher (to them).

Get one of those pet fountains. I like the circular ones that have 360 spouts. They are easier to clean than the other type of fountain. Mine like to drop leaves and toys and things into their fountain, but it does keep them away from the toilets. They are still obsessed with the faucet in the kitchen, though, and the bathtub.

no wonder why cats have 9 lives. Sigh.

[RedMare01]

@Diamondindykin;6091974

Mine are obsessed with the bath tub:yes: We have a big jacuzzi tub and anytime we are in the bathroom we have to turn the facet on so they can drink and chase the water. 3 out of the 5 cats that I have do this…cats are really strange if you think about it:lol:

Ditto this. All three of mine loff our Jacuzzi tub. They sit on the ledge and watch me take a bath every night.

I got them a pet fountain. This one:
http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Pet-6022-Drinking-Fountain/dp/B00329RZFE

They loff it, I loff it. It has cut down on the amount they try to drink out of the bathtub, but they do still want to from time to time.

[jadewolf]

One suggestion might be to change the location where you have their water bowl.

Years ago, we had a cat that wouldn’t drink the water we gave her… preferring instead to go out on the porch and drink the nasty water from the potted plant trays.

We eventually figured out that her water bowl was under an air vent in the ceiling and apparently dust and stuff was falling in her water, tainting it by her estimation.

We moved the water bowl to the other side of the room and she went back to drinking from it and left the plants alone.

Cats are so prissy sometimes!

[Limitless]

My mother’s cat really enjoyed drinking out of the running faucet in the bathroom. Obviously, this was not ideal! They compromised by putting a cup of water on the bathroom counter for him. He would drink there, but not from a bowl on the floor.

But he knew I was a sucker, so whenever I stopped in for a visit, he would meow at me to follow him in the bathroom and turn on the water for him.

[Flagstaff_Foxhunter]

RedMare, thanks for the link, I just ordered one of those waterers from Amazon. It occurred to me that when the pet sitter comes, my cat won’t get his beloved, frequent, and on-demand sink drinks, so I’ll have one less thing to worry about.

What is this water fascination? My cat also loves the dog water–yuck beyond belief. He loves to watch the toilet flush, and occasionally does drink from there. He adores getting between the shower curtain and liner while we’re showering, and then he goes in the shower after and licks the walls and the liner. So shower cleaning sprays are out. My previous cat did all the same things, and yowled at me to get out of the shower, believing I was too stupid to figure out why I kept getting drenched.

[RedMare01]

@Flagstaff Foxhunter;6092645

RedMare, thanks for the link, I just ordered one of those waterers from Amazon. It occurred to me that when the pet sitter comes, my cat won’t get his beloved, frequent, and on-demand sink drinks, so I’ll have one less thing to worry about.

Awesome! I did a lot of research before I bought that particular fountain. It’s ceramic, which should last longer and stay more sanitary than plastic. The size is perfect (it holds 60oz without extra tanks, and I find I have to add ~16oz a day to replace what they drink, but it doesn’t get so low in a day that I have to worry about it burning out the motor), they can drink from almost any angle, and…it was cheaper and more attractive than pretty much all of the other fountains out there! So far, I am very happy.

[incentive]

What’s the problem??? Just put the lid down!!

[Canaqua]

My big cat will ONLY drink out of my water glass, that I keep by my bed. Not his bowl, not the dogs’ bowls, not the toilet. If I put another glass, on the other night table for him, he won’t touch it. I’ve decided that I will just live with the cat germs ;). I fill it up, go to bed, up comes the cat, every night…he drinks the top inch or two off…the rest is mine.

I finally convinced my husband to keep toilet lids down after we spent an entire afternoon working on a bad toilet clog. Plunging didn’t work, Liquid Plumber didn’t work, a snake didn’t work. We finally bailed the toilet out. turned off the water, unhooked everything, removed toilet from the floor…when we picked it up, we heard something clunking, turned it over end over end several times and out came a dog bone.

[fivesocks]

My kitties like the toilet too, and Canaqua, leaving a water glass out is a sure way to get my cats to drink as well. I used to prove fresh Brita filtered water daily in their ceramic kitty bowl, but they clearly favor all other options

[lauriep]

Toilet cats here, too. Except at Christmas, I had a big bowl of water with floating candles in it on a side table. Well! That became their personal fountain, even with wax candles in it, and they drank it dry every couple of days. Very foul looks from the when I put it away. Now it is back to the toilet.

One of my cats comes running the instant she hears my printer fire up. She ADORES watching the paper come out!

[Kyzteke]

Some of mine do the same thing, unless I’ve used it and forgotten to flush.:uhoh: Even though there are 2 other bowls of water available – one metal one that they share with the dogs and one plastic one that is for cats only – one of my cats has a strong preference for the toilet, and several others like it as well, but will drink from the bowls. Some of the other cats seem to care less…

Those same cats that prefer toilet water also seem to like to drink from the bathtub faucet, which has a VERY slow drip to it.

I think they like it because it’s fresh and cold…at least that’s my guess.