15 Creative Ways to Trick Your Choosy Cat Child into Drinking More Water

Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor

Jul 9, 2026 5:30 PM EDT

Our feline fur babies are more unique than snowflakes. Making the task of raising them that much tougher than it needs to be. If it wasn't hard enough finding a food that our cats and our wallets agree upon, you then have to handle their particular drinking habits. But thanks to a clever group of pawrents we may have a few helpful hints as to how to get your choosy cat child to drink enough water.

Reddit's r/CATHELP subreddit is quite direct in its intentions, it hosts a space for pawrents in crisis to have their concerns heard and helped. So when one pawrent posted pleading for help with their cat child who refuses to drink enough water the community leapt into action. And seeing as this is a very common problem for feline pawrents, I myself have done many rounds of battle with a cat who refused to drink enough. We figured we would extend their helping hands to you so that anyone dealing with this problem will have some support and tools to deal with it.

If you are lucky enough not to be afflicted by this problem I will briefly illuminate you on the subject. Water is incredibly important for cats as under our care they do not quite get the same kind of liquid intake as they would in the wild. Wild prey contains far more juice than even the fanciest wet food, so us pawrents are left with the challenge of ensuring our feline fur babies are well watered to make up for their unnatural diet. But problematic cats tend to be very particular about their water consumption, meaning that if the water container is not in the purrfect spot, not off the purrfect type, or not of acceptable quality they simply will not drink. And so you see how harrowing a problem this can be for the pawrents who handle it on a daily basis. So I hope these pawrental insights are helpful to those of you fighting the good fight. They shall drink their water yet!

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This is so legit and a really interesting solution to a very common problem. Though while it does solve the problem of how to get your feline fur baby to drink the appropriate amount of water, it creates an entirely different problem as well. That being that no glass is safe anymore. You might think that the cat will respect the sanctity of what is yours and what is theirs. But as any experienced cat pawrent can tell you, there is no such sanctity amongst cats and before you even realize what has happened you will find yourself with a mouth full of fur…
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Now this is a very interesting one indeed. The fact that your cat might not be drinking is not because of the vessel you have served them the water in, but in fact because of the water quality. We had never given this too much thought but it s a very realistic issue. Cats have far more sensitive senses than us, and even we can tell the difference between tap and filtered water most of the time. So for a cat it must be night and day. And while the rainwater thing is a little strange, it is also legit, as rainwater often has many minerals that tap water does not. But we would probably still leave it for the plants and trees,
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15 Creative Ways to Trick Your Choosy Cat Child into Drinking More Water

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