Water is essential to cat health. With a wet-food diet (raw or canned), most of their water needs will come from their diet, so the best thing you can do for their health is to feed wet. Kibble is a disaster for health, and linked to disease and death, with one of it's many problems being that it doesn't get enough water into the cat - it actually dehydrates them. Even if you think your cat is drinking lots, it is usually in response to the dehydrating effects of dry food, with the net hydration result still being inadequate.
Anyway, this is supposed to be a post about water fountains, which have become quite popular lately. Certainly, they can be useful in tempting a cat into using it as a water source. For me, I'd say they don't have all the health benefits they claim - if you feed wet in the first place, you'll be getting enough water into your cat. But there's certainly no harm in adding a fountain to the mix! If your cat enjoys it, then go for it.
We did try a water fountain, a very expensive one! And I don't have the name of it because it is no longer with us - within a month, we had donated it. It simply wasn't worth the hassle, or had sufficient benefit to bother with it. The type we purchased had a filter that needed replacing every two weeks - an big ongoing expense. But the filter could also add little black floaties to the water (the instructions said this was harmless, but hey...a fountain is supposed to be about fresh oxygenated water!). And with or without the filter, we discovered that a fine scum was appearing very quickly on top of the water. So be choosy in what you buy for a fountain - check out if there will be an ongoing expense for filters, and do a good lot of review reading to see if people have been happy with that particular fountain.
As you can see, our cats are creative in finding water that appeals to them! Leave ANY glass untended for a second, and Ava will have a taste, while Kato jumps in the shower as soon as you step out for 'fresh' water, and just yesterday, I caught Ava licking the tap - so I turned it on for her and she lapped from the running stream. Oh, and we also change their stainless steel water bowl about 4 times a day! The fountain at the time didn't actually increase water consumption (given how our cats find fresh anyway!), but it did hold great fascination as a play thing - many paws tried to 'catch' the stream of water!
Anyway, this is supposed to be a post about water fountains, which have become quite popular lately. Certainly, they can be useful in tempting a cat into using it as a water source. For me, I'd say they don't have all the health benefits they claim - if you feed wet in the first place, you'll be getting enough water into your cat. But there's certainly no harm in adding a fountain to the mix! If your cat enjoys it, then go for it.
We did try a water fountain, a very expensive one! And I don't have the name of it because it is no longer with us - within a month, we had donated it. It simply wasn't worth the hassle, or had sufficient benefit to bother with it. The type we purchased had a filter that needed replacing every two weeks - an big ongoing expense. But the filter could also add little black floaties to the water (the instructions said this was harmless, but hey...a fountain is supposed to be about fresh oxygenated water!). And with or without the filter, we discovered that a fine scum was appearing very quickly on top of the water. So be choosy in what you buy for a fountain - check out if there will be an ongoing expense for filters, and do a good lot of review reading to see if people have been happy with that particular fountain.
As you can see, our cats are creative in finding water that appeals to them! Leave ANY glass untended for a second, and Ava will have a taste, while Kato jumps in the shower as soon as you step out for 'fresh' water, and just yesterday, I caught Ava licking the tap - so I turned it on for her and she lapped from the running stream. Oh, and we also change their stainless steel water bowl about 4 times a day! The fountain at the time didn't actually increase water consumption (given how our cats find fresh anyway!), but it did hold great fascination as a play thing - many paws tried to 'catch' the stream of water!