Why does my cat splash water onto the floor before drinking?

by Leslie
(PA)

My 12-year-old cat puts her paw into her bowl and splashes the water onto the floor and drinks it from the floor. This only started about two weeks ago, but I can’t get her to stop. I’ve tried putting the bowl on a towel, but she just soaks the towel. It’s ruining my wood floors! Please help.

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by: Anonymous

My kitty was doing that too, but with his hard food. Then he started not eating all of his food. His nickname is 'piggy' so I knew something was wrong. He had a bad tooth that needed to be pulled, now I have my 'piggy' back! That may not be your kitty's problem, but this just happened last month, so thought I'd throw it out there. I hope it's just silly kitty stuff! :)
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by: Kurt (Admin)

It's fairly common for cats to paw at their water and splash it out of their bowls. Your cat may be playing with the water, or it may be more than that.

Your cat might be like many others, and prefers moving water over still. Many cats like to drink out right out of the tap, but that's often not practical.

One thing to try is changing the water more frequently. Another is changing the source of the water (tap versus one kind of filtered water or another).

If none of that works, you can give your cat moving water by getting a drinking fountain.

Why this started recently, I can't say for certain. There may have been some sort of change at the source of the water. On the other hand, my usual caution is that anytime a cat has a major behavior change, it can be related to a medical problem.

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