You Can Lead A Horse to Water...

But you can't make him drink.

Remember I said that I would tell the story about how Nightshade learned to drink water? Well, it's time to tell the story, and I'm glad there are no pictures for proof.

Nightshade (although I call him Mr. Scampers and Shadow more often than not) was bottle fed until recently. Due to the vet's recommendation, he is now eating canned cat food exclusively. From day one, I have made fresh water available to him even when he was getting a bottle.

Now that he is on canned food, it is important that he drink water too, but I never see him take a drink. I see him stare at the water and look very interested in it, but I've never seen him take a lap of water.

I've given it a few days because he may drink water when I'm not watching. Who knows? Also, he sees my other adult cats drink water all the time so he has plenty of examples to follow.

One day, he was staring intently into the water bowl. He would tentatively dip his head and just when I thought he would stick his tongue into the bowl, he would raise his head again. I was worried because he seemed thirsty.

I finally decided to take matters into my own hands. After all, I am pretty sure he thinks I am his mom. I got a different bowl, a human one with no cat germs, and filled it with water. I will regret telling this part...........well, you can probably figure out what I did, right?

Short story is, he now knows how to drink water from a bowl.