My Cat Has a Drinking Problem at The Discovering Alcoholic
My cat has a drinking problem.
For 13 years my two cats drank out of a continuously upgraded pet fountain that kept their water circulating and fresh. I kept it clean and always with a fresh carbon filter. Then Thing 2 died, and our routines got out of whack. It started with Thing 1 drinking out of the fresh water glass my wife leaves on the smaller of the Buddhist altars in our house. She would not scold him for doing so, but I knew it bothered her so I began to put out a Peet’s coffee cup full of water next to my bed every morning. He loved it. I thought it was kind of cool; both us with our favorite beverages, sipping out of mugs. Then came the day that I realized that one mug wasn’t enough. Especially when traveling, I worried that he wouldn’t have enough so I put him up a second mug.
I was enabling my cat’s drinking problem.
Now the cat totally ignores his drinking fountain. I’ve scrubbed it, changed filters, and even tried bottled water to no avail. Thing 1 is addicted to his bedside mugs and will just refuse to drink if I take them away. Now we have to fill the mugs up in the morning and evening. I don’t really mind doing it but when I’m on the road my the duty falls to my wife… and suddenly it’s MY cat. You married people know what I mean when I say she’s putting the charges for this on my tab. Yeah, take the mugs away and I know he’ll drink if he get’s thirsty enough but he’s too old and I’m too soft for that kind of tough love.
I’m a recovering alcoholic, an advocate and public speaker, and then there’s TDA… but none of this prepared me for my cat developing a drinking problem. A true story yes, but hardly serious or compelling- actually it is kind of funny; both the story and the life lesson it conveys. Those of us that have family and loved ones with a drinking problem (I’ve been on both sides of the fence with family members, non-feline) will bend over backwards to help them. Sometimes we even facilitate the behavior or may even be part of the problem. Even for those of us with enough experience to know how to handle a loved one’s drinking- when it comes down to laying down the law we balk. This can be just as stressful as not knowing what to do, knowing and yet still unable to follow through.
