My cat drinks no water and it is OK
by MIchael
The title sounds weird but I sure that it is not abnormal, let’s put it that way.
We should remind ourselves of two important factors that dictate that domestic cats don’t drink much water (or no water in the case of my boy) if they are fed wet cat food. This is an important caveat.
We cat food contains about 80% water content. It is mainly water. As I recall a mouse has about 70% water content. So there is plenty of water in wet cat food.
Also the domestic cat originates in the African wildcat, a cat that has a high tolerance to dry conditions and is able to survive in dry conditions without requiring lots of water.
The big problem comes if you feed your cat only dry cat food. Then cats generally don’t drink enough water because they are generally poor drinkers and as they are unfamiliar with the contents of dry cat food they fail to compensate by drinking more water.
Back to my cat. I have checked if he drinks outside and I am convinced that he does not. As I said, he drinks no water.
He has been given a clean bill of health by an excellent vet recently, so obviously it is not a problem.
There is, however, one problem that might be linked to his no-drink policy.
His skin is dry. He scratches a bit more that normal despite being flea free. I know he is flea free because I flea comb him 1 – 4 times per day.
So for one reason only – to try an put more moisture into his skin – I’ll try some fish with added water; a kind of fish soup or a chicken type soup as he loves chicken.
I thought I’d share this because it is unusual for a cat to not drink water at all.
The sand cat, a cute wild cat and the only true desert cat gets all its water from prey, small mammals.
Michael