Caturday: Nine Lives and Water Choices
In our home of eight cats, water bowls are everywhere--at least, one in each room and on the catio. But the water trough is not just a convenience—it’s an institution.
It started with Bear. A hunk whose solid part-Chartreux body fits his name. With the thirst of a marathon runner, he would drain bowl after bowl of water with such diligence that we found ourselves in the vet’s office asking, “Is he okay?” Tests returned with a shrug: healthy as can be. Well, a big cat needs lots of water, we figured, and kept filling those bowls every hour. Eventually, we swapped out the master bedroom bowls for a large plastic container that looked like a trough. A water trough. These days, it takes over 100 ounces of fresh water a day to keep Bear and his siblings happily hydrated, most of slurped down by Bear.
The cats love it. The master bedroom leads to the catio so it is a natural gathering spot for the cats, especially when the catio is a bit too cold or too hot. Then, we’ll find three or four cats gathered around the trough like pilgrims at a sacred spring, whiskers dipping in unison, tails curled gently like commas in a shared sentence. It’s a surprisingly tender sight: a ritual of care, trust, and thirst.
But the story of that water doesn’t begin at the spout.
Where we live, nitrate contamination is a recurring concern—so much so that community alerts are issued when levels spike, and restaurants pivot to bottled water overnight. What’s more, boiling the water (a common reaction to other contaminants) only concentrates the nitrates. So, we adapt. We filter through a reverse osmosis system for drinking and ice. We rely on bottled water for ourselves and our animals. And we do it not just out of preference, but out of necessity.
We choose Evian, partly for its consistent low levels of contaminants, partly because it doesn’t provoke side-eye from the cats. I suspect they appreciate its alpine origins.
But beneath this everyday ritual is something more complex: a quiet negotiation between safety and trust. We trust the filtration system, the bottled water source, the vet’s reassurance that Bear’s bottomless thirst isn’t a signal of something darker. And most of all, we trust that these choices—resupplying the trough once or twice a day, checking the latest water reports, choosing vigilance over convenience—matter.
In our house, hydration is a caregiving practice.
So, this Caturday, I raise a metaphorical glass to Bear, First of His Name, Spokescat for the Trough Society, who drinks deeply and reminds us that even in something as ordinary as a bowl (or trough) of water, there is a story about love, advocacy, and resourcefulness.
Let’s keep filling it.
Learn more about cats. See our many Caturday posts.
Be entertained. See all our posts about cats.
Be inspired. See posts by and about Sula, parish cat, and her books.
Have a chuckle. Read posts by and about Jeremy Feig's award-winning book (book of the year finalist, Kops-Fetherling Lagacy Award for Humor), How My Cat Made Me a Better Man.
Watch for Luna Norwood's forthcoming book, Raising Happy Cat Families.
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