Why Does My Cat Scratch The Floor Before Drinking Water

Cats who splish their water before drinking may in fact be attempting to achieve a similar effect.

Why does my cat scratch the floor before drinking water.

Before or after your kitten or cat eats or drinks it may paw scratch or knead the floor as if it is digging or burying something. Why does my cat yowl at the water dish before drinking. Gracie has always scratched and clawed on and around the bowl before she drinks. Sometimes i would go through 3 or 4 cans of cat food being scratched at before the cat would eat someth.

There s nothing wrong with your cat. In fact your pet is demonstrating an instinct shared even by the big cats and it is a very positive sign that it is feeling at home in your house. A common mistake cat owners make is that when their cat swipes their paw on the floor around their food dish they think that they are covering up the food like they would their poop in a litter box. If water is clean and the bowl does not smell then there just might be a smell under the water bowl.

It took me years to understand why my cat gracie does that. Many cat owners assume this is a clear sign that the cat isn t interested in the food. This assumption is inaccurate. Whenever a cat drinks water from a bowl it paws scratches or kneads the area as if it is trying to bury something.

Perhaps you don t see or smell anything there but the floor under the bowl could be quite a mess. This is not an unusual behavior. As was mentioned below they usually scratch around their food bowl either after eating or before if they don t like what you are feeding them. One such occurrence that confuses nearly all the cat owners is scratching the floor just before or after drinking water.

At the very least you should change the water in her bowl twice a day. Most of us keep a water bowl in the same spot all the time. When she was a kitten i had to keep the water and food bowls separated because if the. If you cat engages in this oddly cute behavior consider getting her one of those recirculating water fountains now commercially available for cats.