Does your cat do this?

August 10, 2022 11:56 AM

I just watched from across the room as the cat that I'm catsitting jumped up on the table, walked over to the cup I had been drinking from, and stuck his fluffy paw deep into the water. Then he licked his paw and did it again. I've seen cats tap their own water bowls (and try to put their heads in glasses), but hadn't witnessed this before.

I'm drinking from a travel mug with a lid now, but just wondering how common this is. I cat sit fairly often and usually have a water glass next to the bed when I sleep.

posted by pinochiette to Pets & Animals (42 answers total)

My cat(s) did that on the regular. Did it with my beer too. Smart cat.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:01 PM on August 10, 2022 [10 favorites]

One of the three cats I've had did this.
posted by Ms Vegetable at 12:02 PM on August 10, 2022

It's not uncommon for cats to do that, at least the sticking paws in water part.
posted by Candleman at 12:02 PM on August 10, 2022

My cat definitely does this. He looooooves to stick a paw in any water cup or his bowl and lick off of it. He makes a huge mess though so I generally know if he's been near a water source.
posted by cpatterson at 12:02 PM on August 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

Yup. Everyone in the house has to use a water bottle instead of a glass or mug.
posted by Ookseer at 12:02 PM on August 10, 2022 [8 favorites]

I have a cat that now has her own mug of water ,because I caught her drinking out of mine.
posted by yyz at 12:04 PM on August 10, 2022

AND ON THE EIGHTH DAY, GOD CREATED CATS

SO WE COULD LAUGH
posted by armoir from antproof case at 12:05 PM on August 10, 2022 [16 favorites]

Mine does that! I don’t drink out if things I haven’t kept an eye on and sometimes he gets his own glass of water
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 12:09 PM on August 10, 2022

My friend had a cat that did this. Their vet attributed the behavior to his poor eyesight. He was also a former stray.
posted by Diskeater at 12:10 PM on August 10, 2022

Yes. Also had a cat who only did it when it seemed like nobody was watching.

Basically taught me that no beverage is safe.
posted by bilabial at 12:12 PM on August 10, 2022 [6 favorites]

Yep. I have a bottle of water and an empty glass next to my bed for that reason. (The smallest cat also sticks her tiny head in the glass and plain laps up the water. This was fun when she encountered the remains of my coffee and pingponged around the walls and ceiling for over an hour.)
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:18 PM on August 10, 2022

Yes, our water turns to Foot Water almost immediately when glasses are left out.
posted by oxisos at 12:20 PM on August 10, 2022 [12 favorites]

Well, today I saw a squirrel trying to get moisture by licking wet pavement (not a puddle). When you're thirsty and you have no thumbs, you improvise.
posted by amtho at 12:23 PM on August 10, 2022

I had a foster cat who loved to play with water. She would also splash water onto her kibble to soften it.
posted by mersen at 12:27 PM on August 10, 2022

a yup (one of my two, who also enjoys knocking over the glass)
posted by supermedusa at 12:30 PM on August 10, 2022

I've known eight cats well in my life, and two of them have done this.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:31 PM on August 10, 2022

I don't remember seeing this with any cats I know.

But! I lived with a cat once who would nonchalantly brush up against the coffee table and knock full (but not empty) cups over with his tail.
posted by aniola at 12:41 PM on August 10, 2022

I've met a cat that drank that way. Never saw him drink any other way.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 12:42 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

Last week I noticed one of the farm cats doing this with a reservoir plate...thing whatever they're called that flower pots sit on. I went over filled her empty water bowl, splashed it a bit with my finger, and she came running over. She took a few sips, looked up at me, and then went back to the planter to use her paw.
posted by sevenless at 12:42 PM on August 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

My timeshare cat, Monster, does this. He isn't subtle, either. Makes a huge mess.

When it's not his turn with the brain cell, he also likes to slap and fight water - again, making a ruckus whilst doing so.
posted by spinifex23 at 12:43 PM on August 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

Very common - of the 6 adult cats I've had, I've seen 3 of them doing this.

And ALL of them used their tongues to lap up water from un-guarded drinking glasses, leaving no visible trace.

I used to leave a decoy mug of water on the floor beside a bookshelf in the hopes that it would keep them away from my water. Reader, it didn't, but they liked it, so I kept it there for years. Then I started putting a splash of juice into my water just as cat repellent, as I've never seen them do this with juice (if anyone's cat does this with juice don't tell me)

My friend's cat uses his paw to delicately pull one kibble at a time out of his dish so he can eat it off his paw or the floor.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 12:45 PM on August 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

I have had at least two cats that do this.
posted by drezdn at 1:04 PM on August 10, 2022

Yep, my cat does this, and only with water cups. We use water bottles or tumblers with lids only in our house because she inevitably miscalculates and pulls the thing over. Mug of tea or juice is safe, though.
posted by brook horse at 1:24 PM on August 10, 2022

My first cat who did this with TOILET WATER is the one who taught me to always close the toilet lid.
posted by misskaz at 1:47 PM on August 10, 2022 [7 favorites]

The one time my cat did this, after discovering that the cup was too narrow for her face, I walked over to her water bowl to point out that she has her own--and found a bug in her water. So even a cat who generally doesn't do it may be pushed to it when humans are cruel.
posted by tchemgrrl at 1:52 PM on August 10, 2022 [6 favorites]

We refer to it as the "dip and lick" in our household--I just saw one of our cats do it with a water glass the other day.

Not all of our cats have done it, but one in particular was really into it. She'd do it with cups of milk our kids left around, and once with an empty Ben and Jerry's container of ice cream, to get the melt-off. She was a very dignified floofy gray girl, and the look of serious concentration she'd get with the dip and lick was hugely amusing.
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:59 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

Bog-standard cat behavior. Lily the Cat even did it with diet cola and black coffee.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:19 PM on August 10, 2022

I have two cats. One does this, one does not. I think there are two interacting motivations:

1. He wants to be involved in my stuff, the same way cats try to get on your laptop or your jigsaw puzzle or your newspaper or whatever.

2. He loves bleach. When I come home from the swimming pool and leave my bathing suit on the floor, he will spend 45 minutes snuggling the bathing suit. This attaches to water stuff in general. He loves when I pour fresh water in his bowl, but otherwise won't really drink out of the bowl. But a freshly poured glass of water? Paws go right into it, or his face, both are approaches to drinking the water. He likes tap water before the chlorine burns off, but not after.
posted by kensington314 at 2:23 PM on August 10, 2022

I haven't seen a cat do this, but I have absolutely no doubt that they do. Where else would the cat hair that one finds in unattended water glasses come from?

I have seen cats shove their whole face in a glass and drink from it.

usually have a water glass next to the bed when I sleep

Cats are not the only creature in houses that likes to drink water. Don't think you don't have anything around that wants into your glass just because you don't have pets. This is why people use water bottles instead of glasses. (Edit: there are some people who aren't bothered by this, cats and all, if you use an open water glass for overnight you will probably be just fine)
posted by yohko at 2:55 PM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Our cat will do this (A) when the water bowl is gross, and, more often, (B) just because they are a Cat. But knowing that (A) is true is important info.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 3:47 PM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have had a few cats do this. One of my current two does... if the glass is full enough she will drink from it with her face, but if she can't reach with her face she'll shove her whole arm in there and splash around.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 3:53 PM on August 10, 2022

One of my cats will only drink water by dipping his paws and licking water off. I often say that he's my only cat who's going to get to fight the Midianites (that may not actually be accurate, though).
posted by jackbishop at 3:54 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

I have two cats. Neither do it with my drinking glasses, but one does it with the water bowl.

Cats are gonna cat.
posted by kathrynm at 3:57 PM on August 10, 2022

This is a documented Cat Thing.

One of ours did it with wet cat food, too…sort of the way I might eat raw cookie dough, if I didn’t have thumbs.

TL;DR: guard your liquid-y foods around kitty, too, just in case.
posted by armeowda at 4:46 PM on August 10, 2022

My family were all big readers so there were always books lying around on coffee tables. It became second nature that when you put down your water glass, you immediately put a book on top of it, otherwise our cat Pepper would bolt from wherever she was hiding and stick her paw or face right in it immediately. This book thing was so engrained that I had to make myself stop doing it when I went off to college. Our other cat, her littermate who had never lived apart from her since birth, never did anything like this.

Our working theory was "well cats are originally desert animals so a new source of water appearing out of nowhere feels like a rare and potentially life-saving opportunity that must be immediately taken advantage of," but that was definitely us making shit up and who knows if it's true.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:07 PM on August 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

Perfectly common cat behavior.
posted by bryon at 6:31 PM on August 10, 2022

Everyone has already sufficiently answered you, but...
Beware of those cats. They occasionally put things IN your glass of water, too.
posted by stormyteal at 6:41 PM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I had one cat who liked to store his toys in his water bowl.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:06 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

This is the only way my cat drinks water. Sometimes she switches from licking to actually sucking on her toe-beans like she has BBQ sauce on them. It's maddening and I love seeing it (just not hearing it.)
posted by The Adventure Begins at 10:28 PM on August 10, 2022

Cats have an unexpected way of lapping water, too.

They curl their tongues down instead of up, put the flattened part of their tongues more or less on the surface of the liquid, then jerk their tongues suddenly back into their mouths, pulling a stream of liquid with them, then close their jaws to capture the liquid in the stream.
posted by jamjam at 10:47 PM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

My cat does this. She occasionally drinks out of her bowl this way too.
posted by elizabot at 8:40 AM on August 12, 2022

Have we got time for a short story? I can't talk about cats being weird with water without thinking of Bob.

When I lived in the woods on the top of a hill, we shared the woods with a feral cat colony that had been there since the 1970s. We worked with the local SPCA to do TNR and the colony is no longer there, so yes, it does work sometimes. Part of the process was putting food and water out so they'd come to trust us. Every once in a while some feline youngster would stumble out of the trees with an apparent lack of wilderness survival skills, and those tended to be our foster fails. (One of the senior male cats, a dapper, tuxedo-clad fellow with a serious face, even appointed himself a sort of juvie social worker. He would bring these kittens to the door, looking up at us as if to say, "This kid ain't right, and we don't know what to do with 'em.")

Winters were harsh, and we used a heated dish to keep the water just warm enough so it wouldn't freeze over. And that's how Bob came into our lives.

One day I went out to check on the water level, and there was a very sturdy-looking boots-and-mittens tabby kitten of about six weeks sitting in the middle of the dish, tail wrapped around his legs like he was just passing the time of day. He had been trying to get to the warmed bottom and somehow failed to notice that it still contained several inches of water. Social Worker Cat was sitting nearby, rolling his eyes in embarrassment on behalf of the species. Nabbing ensued. There were a few different reasons for choosing his name, but it was clinched when my sister said, "What do you call a dumb cat hanging out in a big bowl of water? 'Bob.'"

Quarantine was rough because he was a bolter, and never really took to being touched or handled. When he was released out into the house, he kept to himself a lot, so you might only see him a couple of times a day. Christmas rolled around, and that year I was puzzled at how often I was having to fill the water reservoir in the Christmas tree stand. How was the tree so dry when I was constantly watering it? And then one day we heard a weird splashing noise and the sound of the tree shaking, and there was Bob cramming his fool head down into the reservoir. Every so often he'd give up and start scooping water up to his mouth with his paw. I still regret not being able to catch it on film.

(This bears many resemblances to the tale of Danny the Tomato Vampire. But that's another story for another time.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:20 PM on August 12, 2022 [3 favorites]