It's hot and the cat isn't drinking enough

[SigmaWhisky]

Originally Posted by praline

Do you feed canned or dry food? If you feed canned, can you add warm water to it and mix it up really good?

Here is something I am doing with my Bentley's food (he is a dog on a diet)
I have a magic Bullet ~ BTW best kitchen item EVER ~ I grind up his dry wellness core. I then add carrots and green beans (fresh) and grind those in my magic bullet. I then add warm water to the ground (to a powder) dry food with the carrots and beans.. it makes a big sloppy stew and he LOVES it.
It is really helping his diet, adding the carrots and beans and lots of water to fill him up. I was only suggesting that if you fed dry as a quick fix rather then forcing him to drink. The warm water makes a nice gravy lol

Cats are obligatory carnivores and will always have trouble digesting plant matter. Their metabolic system is not designed to digest plants.

Back on topic though; The ideal way is to give your cat enough fluids through wet food or meat. Your cat won't eat these however. My question is: How did you try to get him to eat it? A lot of cats have neophobia (fear of new things). Also cats are very scent oriented when choosing whether or not to eat something.

The problem with dry food and hydration is just that. Dry food contain only up to 10% water and the cat will have to drink water elsewhere to compensate. Cats don't have a thirst-drive so they don't usually drink enough water to fully compensate this and you see that the levels of water intake in cats who eat metabolic fluids in their meat will have a higher intake of water than cats who eat dry kibble. Wet foods contain up to 78% water.

What you can try to do if you cannot get other suggestions to work is to try and get your cat to accept new food as part of his diet. Mix some of the new food in with his old diet and slowly increase the new food, and decrease the old food gradually. The scent of the old food will soothe a cat's thoughts and he will probably give the new alien food a try when the old food's scent is around it.

Again I realize you've already tried to reach the same goal but since I'm really convinced this is the most natural way for a cat to stay hydrated, I thought I'd share a different way of doing things (maybe you've tried this also in which case i'll just shut my yapper).

One last things to consider: Cats keep cool through licking themselves and cool air passing over their tongue.
Cats do not sweat like humans do. So they do not lose more fluids through this channel.

A good source on weening you cat from dry to wet is:
Making Wet Food from Kibble ? rawmeatcatfood.com

I'm afraid there's no easy fix to your problem but if you find a good solution I think you'll find it worth the effort, Good luck in your quest!

[cooncatbob]

How do I get my cat to drink more water?
I pour it in a glass, if kitty thinks it's mine then she wants some too.
I leave a glass of filtered water on the coffee table.

[Larry]

My cats love drinking from the bathroom faucet. I don't like it but my wife lets it drip-drip-drip and the cats love it. I don't know why. Maybe they love the coolness of tap water and prefer it over the warm water in their dish.