10Jan/118
My cat only drinks out of my dogs water pan but never his own?
Is this weird? My 2 goldens and my lab have no problem with the cat, they even will sit on the bed with him. When i first saw my cat doing this I thought the dogs would be more territorial but they wernt. I was just wondering is this normal for a friendly cat. I refil his water regularly so there's no reason for him to dislike it. I just think it's weird.
January 10th, 2011 - 06:07
I have 3 female dogs and a male cat, they all get along fine and the dogs prefere eating out of the cats bowel then there own, Its just a thing that both cats and dogs do in the same household, if you can make the cats food source more out of reach from the dogs that usually helps
January 10th, 2011 - 06:08
just let him my cat drinks out of my dogs water bowl to its just normal i guess
January 10th, 2011 - 06:13
The cat evidently feels like he’s part of the dog crew. Let him drink from the dogs bowl. He’ll be fine.
January 10th, 2011 - 06:14
It is normal(at least with my cats anyway) It is probably closer to him when he wants to get a drink so he just goes to it. A cat generally is not territoral about their water so they don’t think my water and their water.
Hope I helped!
January 10th, 2011 - 07:08
This is surprisingly common. Over the years I’ve come up with my own guess as to why and figure it is a “grass is always greener” thing or the digestive enzymes from the other animal’s mouth help them with their own digestion. Vets don’t have an answer.
January 10th, 2011 - 07:13
2 reasons for that:
1. Cats prefer dirtier water over clean tap water. That’s very normal, since they are sensitive to the scent of chemicals/cleaning agents in the water. Since your dogs probably drop their saliva, or pieces of food in their water when they drink, that will make their water a little “dirty”.
2. Some animals feel inferior to, and that way protected by the older bigger animal(in your cat’s case, he probably feels like he is the “baby” with the dogs around). So, they will copy the older/bigger animal. This way they feel safer.
January 10th, 2011 - 08:10
Speaking of cats, I give my cat fresh water daily which I put next to her food. So where does she drink her water? She drinks her H2O from a small fountain I have in the living room. Doesn’t matter to her if I have it running or not. However, I do know of other cats who do the same thing. My sister’s cat does the same. He’s just a bit more picky though. He’ll sit and wait until she turns the small fountain on. They know what they want and they go for it.
January 10th, 2011 - 08:10
Reason unknown; cats simply seem to like drinking the dogs water. We haven’t had a watering dish for our cats in years. They never drank out of it when we had one anyway. And now the dog is teaching them to drink from the toilet.