How can I encourage my cat to drink more?

[Katy May]

My 3 yr old, neutered male cat gets cystitis and the vet has said this will continue to happen (and may cause serious problems) unless he drinks more. I've tried water fountains (cats terrified of the noise!), flavoring water with tuna juice etc (only works if very strongly flavoured), making the water cloudy (doesn't work), different shaped bowls in various locations, leaving taps running and using bottled water. He's on a special (ie expensive) diet of dried food and I add water to the biscuits, which is not very successful, but short of syringing it into him I'm all out of ideas. Can anyone help?

[Kimmiebear]

Is there a tinned food version of the food you are feeding? Have you tired water at different temperatures? Sometimes that works with dogs... Sounds like you have tried everything.

[Noweia]

It's very hard to get cats to drink - most water in a cat's diet come from the food. The only thing I could suggest would be to switch to wet food, but if he's on a special diet then you probably can't do that. Sorry!

[ProperBoPeep]

Ok. Several things:

{} Use rain water collected from outside and use this. Cats do not like tap or bottled water.

{} Use glass bowls and fill right to the surface. Again cats like to see the surface of the water

{} Don't put water and food together

{} Put at least 2x the numbers of water bowls down than cats you have (eg if you have 2 cats, you need 4 bowls)

Try these and hopefully you may have some success. Good luck

[Pajama Girl]

It is sooooo very frustrating to keep cats hydrated when they are stubborn about drinking!

Good advice from previous posts. But if none of these work you might need to hydrate him subcutis with a hypodermic needle. I did this for my elderly cats who had developed kidney disease.

It sounds awful and difficult but it is fairly easy and the needle does not seem to hurt the cat. It takes a little patience to administer the water slowly under the skin -- forcing the water too quickly seems to be the one thing that causes discomfort. My vet taught me how to administer it and provided me with the hypo. I purchased the water from the vet clinic.

Best of luck.

[ruthann58]

we had this problem and now soak all dry food for at least 2or 3 hours before feeding till it has absorbed all the water they would not eat it to start with but i did not give them an alternative and now they eat it fine also have you tried syringing water into his mouth

[Katy May]

Thank you all for your suggestions, not sure I can stomach the hyperdermic option but soaking the food is working well as is the glass bowl suggestion. Thanks again.

[Athley]

My cat will only drink water from the bird bath in our garden. I do change the water frequently (but maybe its like the flavoured waters we buy - but bird flavoured!!)
Try this it may work.