# Cats rarely drink water after switch to canned?



## thenakedorchid (Sep 15, 2010)

I've noticed that my girls don't really drink that much water any more after I switched them both to canned food. I have them on Weruva and ZiwiPeak canned, and Honest Kitchen Prowl, a dehydrated cat food that requires a good amount of water to rehydrate.

Should I be worried? The pee clumps that I dig out of their litter are huge though.


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## jbx74205 (Jul 21, 2010)

Canned food contains a lot more water than dry, so they are likely getting a lot more of their water from this and have to drink less. Still, if you're concerned, maybe give the vet a ring.


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## Alpaca (Dec 21, 2009)

Miu drinks less water after the switch over from dry to a wet/raw diet combination.


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## Susan (Mar 29, 2010)

It's perfectly normal for cats to drink less water when they're eating wet food than when they're eating dry. Despite their reduced drinking, they still consume more water via the wet food than they would via dry food plus more drinking. So, you have nothing to worry about, particularly since their pee clumps are still normal.


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## catlady2010 (Feb 4, 2010)

I rarely see my cats drinking water whenever they're on a canned or raw diet. It's normal.


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## NinjaCat (Oct 6, 2010)

Completely normal. They're getting most of the water they require via their food. I've noticed that now that I have them on canned food for two meals each day they aren't drinking as much, but I'm still finding big clumps of pee in the litter boxes. I have Spike (the dog) 100% on raw and he doesn't drink anywhere near as much as he used to.


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## ~Siameseifuplz~ (May 6, 2007)

Mine don't drink at all when they are on all canned. As soon as Neko gets into the dog's dry he has to chug water, it's very telling.


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## thenakedorchid (Sep 15, 2010)

Ok, good to know! No need to shell out on an expensive pet fountain if they're not even going to use it. Bowls will do.


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## NinjaCat (Oct 6, 2010)

thenakedorchid said:


> Ok, good to know! No need to shell out on an expensive pet fountain if they're not even going to use it. Bowls will do.



Fountains could still be worth it. For me they are. When I had the water in bowls, I would have to change the water four times a day because of all the hair, food and nasty stuff that would get in the bowls. They weren't drinking very much from the bowls either. Once I got a fountain Princess and Penny started drinking a lot more. They were very attracted to it. They like to play in it. So it serves as a toy too. It's worth it to me because
1) It holds more water
2) It filters the water
3) It keeps it cooler
4) They are much more attracted to running water, thus drinking more
5) When we go on vacation that's one less thing for the pet sitter to have to take care of

They do drink more than they would with bowls of water, even on mainly canned food. Except Rocky. He doesn't seem to like it for some reason. It's like he's scared of it, but he tries to drink from it every now and then.


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## Ducman69 (Aug 28, 2010)

^ I agree.

Even though canned is 80% water, I've never heard of a cat overhydrating, and mine still use the fountain although they have dry food left out for free feeding and get small portions of wet three times a day four days of the week (only twice unfortunately the other three).


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## paperbacknovel (Jun 9, 2010)

I wish we could get a fountain. We had a water cooler-type thing for a while to make sure they didn't run out when we were at work, but our new kitty started tackling it every day when we were gone, thus knocking it over and causing all of the water to glug-glug-glug out all over the floor.

Every. Single. Day. It was so frustrating.

So now we have large dog water bowls that have rubber grips on the bottom to keep them from being knocked over.

If I could be 100% sure we could use the fountain without Forte destroying it, I'd get it in a heartbeat.


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