# My cat (Marcel) is scooping all the water out of his bowl...



## kboese (Aug 12, 2003)

I hope somebody has had a similar experience and can offer some advice. Marcel is a little over a year old and has taken to "scooping" or "splashing" all of his water out of his watering dish. This is ruining my floor, but more importantly, he is having to go long periods of time without any water, as his bowl will sit empty until I get home from work.

He did not begin this behavior until I purchased a new watering dish. The new dish looks like a miniature office water cooler. It has a 2 quart jug that fits into the dish upside down and keeps the bowl at a constant full level. Marcel immediately figured out that by lowering the level of the water he could cause the jug to gurgle, which absolutely fascinated him. It wasn't long until he was scooping out all the water to watch the bubbles gurgle to the top. After 3 weeks of cleaning up 2 quarts of water every day from my floor and making no headway in trying to get him to stop, I switched back to his old watering dish. Unfortunately, he is now scooping the water out of this dish too! Although the daily mess is considerably less water, as I mentioned before, I'm afraid he's not getting enough water.

Can anyone help me?? Has anyone experienced a similar situation?? Have I created a monster?? Is there another kind of watering dish that I could/should be using??

Any/all advice will be *greatly* appreciated!! Thank you in advance!!!


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## Holly (Aug 11, 2003)

I saw this really good watering dish that prevents spills at petco the other day. Let me see if I can find it... ah yes here it is! That would probably help. Also, I have a food/water placemat that absorbs water. It's made of a foam material and I bought it at Target.

I hope that helps somewhat!


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## kboese (Aug 12, 2003)

Thank you very much for the quick response Holly!! I ran right out and bought one of those 'spill-less' water dishes at my local PetCo and set it out this morning before my shower. When I got out of the shower, the water was all over the floor again!! ARGH!!!

Any other ideas?? I did read the subsequent post, and I do believe he is just having fun. I am hesitant to use any disciplinary action since the activity involves his water/food, and I by no means want him to associate discipline with eathing/drinking.

He is a great cat. Really.


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## Rayona (Jul 24, 2003)

Can you just underfill the water dish? Maybe keep just a little water, and add ice cubes as it gets low. Since cats don't drink much at once, I doubt he would empty it if it was only half-full. Also, I think if he gets too thirsty he will learn to leave it alone.


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## LiCieWishy (Apr 2, 2003)

Hi Kboese,

I had the same problem with my cat Marbles.... He'd recreate Sea World in my kitchen. Fortunately, he grew out of it after a month or two. I don't expect to wait and see if your kitty would grow out of it but I'd suggest placing a tray under his drinking bowl... so at least your floor is safe from further damage.  Good Luck!


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## DizzyJon (Aug 12, 2003)

My cat at work, Divot, went through a week of dumping his bowl. He just loved to tip the dish over. I ended up just switching to one of the non-tip bowls. This bowl was metal and has a rubber rim around the base of it.


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## ralphcor (Jun 28, 2003)

kboese I know and feel your pain! mine is doing the same thing, you might've seen the other post I started when I didn't know you created this one. 

Anyway, we don't have PETco's here, just PETsMART's - they have those spill-less bowls on the website but not in any of the local stores. Not glad you got one and didn't work, but it does save me $20. from buying one and paying half just for the shipping because I think my kitty will just knock over that one too.

What I've tried:
changing water level low & high
changing bowls, big & small
I change the water twice a day, once in morning and again at night
= nothing worked so far, she just seems to have to tip out some water for fun I guess and she's got A LOT of toys to keep her busy.

One thing I have thought of, I've read that cats are not color blind, but do see some colors better than others with some looking just gray... so I think I'm going to try different color bowls - maybe she's interested because the water is so clear and appears to just float so they have to play and figure it out. If that doesn't work then guess I'll just bolt or nail a water dish to my floor! :twisted: 

Some posted this or a link to:
"From the research I've done, I found that most experts on this subject do believe cats see in color. Cats seem to respond to the colors purple, blue, green, and yellow with blue and green being the strongest colors they perceive. Red, orange, and brown colors appear to fall outside a cat's color range and are believed to be seen as shades of gray or purple."

Good luck with yours and let's both post if and when we find a solution to ours...!


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## Majicou (Jun 7, 2003)

I heard of someone whose cat did that. Their solution was to buy a giant water bottle - like the ones you can buy for rabbits - and train the cat to drink from that.


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