If and when you buy one, be sure to get one that won't overflow if the
power goes off.  The first one I had overflowed a couple of times.  My
cat also kept trying to take the top off to drink  out of the tank.

I then bought one at Petco.,  She does drink from it but prefers a small
stream from the tap in the bathroom basin.  Good luck.

I have had success by just placing more bowls of water around the house in
areas they pass frequently.

Steve84 <steve84@flash.net> wrote in rec.pets.cats.health+behav:

They're FABULOUS and they really work.

The Drinkwell Pet Fountain is the first one that came out (hence "the
original" in their ads), and I have 3 of these.  Got one at first, set it up
in the kitchen and cats were afraid of it!!!!  So we unplugged & emptied it
(all the while cursing the finicky cats), and set it in a high
traffic/central area of the house (an area the cats *have* to travel through
to get from one area of the house to another but had plenty of room that
cats could avoid the fountain until they felt that it was 'safe' to
approach), and let the cats get used to the presence of it first.  Slowly (a
couple of feet a day) I moved it closer to their drinking bowl, and then I
let it set there a couple of days.  Then I filled it with water while *not*
filling their other dish with water.  Now they were drinking out of the
fountain without it on.  Finally, I plugged it in.  At the time, I only had
3 cats (1 @ 11yo, 1 @ 10yo, and 1@ 2yo), and they still drank from it.  Then
I found an abandoned kitten, just a day or so old, in our yard.  As he grew
up, the only water he'd ever had has been from a Drinkwell.  In April, I
found 4 more kittens and adopted one of them out in August, but still have
the other three, and they all grew up with the fountains.  Some of my 7 like
to drink from the stream, some from the bowl, but some will drink from
either.

I disassemble them once a week for cleaning (they're made to come apart, you
can even remove the impeller from the pump, and the pump from the main dish
housing), wash the filter, and once every six weeks I replace the filters
with new.

... but yet some of the cats still like the water from the tub faucet.  Go
figure.

I have a PetMate FreshFlow. My guys were leery of it at first, especially
when it "burped" due to
the occasional bubble. But now, it sits next to their bowls and they ignore
it mostly. Occasionally
I see them taking a drink out of it, but I think it probably just keeps that
end of the room nicely
hydrated. They still like their little bowl in the bathroom sink.

I haven't had any problem if the power goes out, and it is pretty easy to
clean. I think the main
benefit is that it keeps the water relatively fresh. If you do get one, give
them time to get used
to it!

Good luck
Pat

We've had a Drinkwell for about 8 years now for the same reason: our
cats were getting older.  The newer model is better--easier to clean
and stronger moter--than the first model we had.  In any event, we
have found that our cats love it, and I do believe they are drinking
more water because it is there.  You have to clean it periodically and
refresh the water totally (we do this once a week).

However, our cat with chronic renal failure still prefers to drink
from the kitchen faucet (although he uses the fountain too :-)

dragon

I bought the Drinkwell from drsfostersmith.com. All four of my cats love
it!! I bought the resourvoir (sp?) that holds something like 6 cups of
water.  We top that off every morning just to make sure the water is fresh
as can be.   I clean it about every two weeks.

Yes. Lots of people. And some cats.

I don't know, and I don't know if anyone knows. It's an interesting
question.

I have the Freshflow, and the cats have one too, ha ha thankyeverymuch
I'm here all week.

I wouldn't recommend it whole heartedly, though possibly I'd recommend
it with my atrioventricular node, one of those wiggly pipe bits and a
lump of arterial plaque. Problems:

- It's a bit of a bugger to clean properly. There are lots of little
nooks and crannies, and you need a small bottle brush to clean the Bit
Where The Water Goes Up (BWTWGU). It also needs to be cleaned
frequently, once a week with my 2 cats.

- The water swooshes down a slide. The cats like to lick the water
from the slide. Unfortunately a cat's rough tongue is sufficient to
gradually slough off little bits of plastic from the slide. In
reality, I doubt this is dangerous, but it ain't ideal. The slide
should be made of metal or ceramic. I think the other make -
Drinkwell? - won't have this problem because it has no water slide
thingy.

- The pump on mine became very noisy and unreliable after c.1.5yrs
(less, maybe). However, replacements are available from
chrystella.com. c. $20, though you do need to swap a couple of parts
between old and new pumps for correct function.

HTH,
Steve.