In FelineSense
Know when drinking becomes a symptom
- A bowl target from your cat’s weight and main food: mostly wet, mixed or mostly dry
- One-tap logging in cat-sized amounts: +10, +25, +50 or +100 mL
- A clear flag when drinking runs over 60 mL/kg, and a gentle one when a dry-fed cat is low by evening
- Litter box visits on the same screen: the amount, straining, blood, or peeing outside the box
- Seven days at a glance, a 30- or 90-day chart in Trends, and the daily average in the vet report
Launching first on iPhone and iPad, with Android and Amazon soon after.
Reading it
What the number tells you
How much water does a cat need?
A cat needs roughly 50–60 mL of water per kg of body weight a day in total. Not all of it comes from the bowl. Food supplies part of it: wet food is about 75–80 % water, dry food about 10 %. So the honest answer to “how much should my cat drink” depends on what your cat eats.
A cat on mostly wet food can get most of its water from the meal and drink very little. A cat on dry food has to drink most of it. Day-to-day variation is normal; the trend over several days is what counts.
Source: NRC 2006 · Merck Veterinary Manual
| Main food | From the bowl, per kg a day | A 4 kg (9 lb) cat | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mostly wet food | up to 20 mL | up to 80 mL (under 3 fl oz) | Barely drinking is normal. The meal is about 75–80 % water. |
| Mixed | 15–35 mL | 60–140 mL (about 2–5 fl oz) | Part of the water comes from the food, part from the bowl. |
| Mostly dry food | 30–50 mL | 120–200 mL (about 4–7 fl oz) | Dry food is about 10 % water, so the bowl does the work. |
| Worth a vet call | over 60 mL | over 240 mL (about a cup) | From the bowl, day after day. |
Source: NRC 2006 · Merck Veterinary Manual · the same bowl targets FelineSense uses
Why cats drink so little
Cats descend from desert-dwelling hunters that got much of their water from prey, and they still have a weak thirst drive. That is fine on wet food. On dry food, some cats simply drink less than they should, and more water is one of the first things vets recommend for cats with bladder trouble.
What helps: wide, shallow bowls or a fountain, several water points around the home, and water kept away from the food bowl and the litter box. Adding wet food is the most reliable way to get more water into a cat.
Source: AAFP/ISFM Feline Environmental Needs Guidelines 2013 · Cornell Feline Health Center
When drinking a lot is a symptom
Drinking more than about 60 mL per kg a day from the bowl, day after day, is worth a vet visit. That is roughly a cup a day for a 4 kg cat. Vets call it polydipsia. In cats it most often points to one of three conditions of middle and later life: kidney disease, diabetes or an overactive thyroid.
It can show up before anything else does. One thirsty day is nothing; a week of emptying the bowl is a call worth making early, with the numbers in hand.
Source: Merck Veterinary Manual
Drinking much less than usual
A sudden drop matters too, especially alongside vomiting, diarrhea or not eating. Check the gums: pink and moist is reassuring, and color should return within two seconds of a gentle press. Tacky gums, sunken eyes or a cat that is quiet and hiding all point to dehydration and a same-day call. A cat that has not eaten for 24 hours needs a vet whatever the water bowl says: cats that go without food risk hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver).
Source: Merck Veterinary Manual · AAFP
The litter box tells you as much as the bowl
You may never see your cat drink, but you will see the litter box. Bigger or more frequent urine clumps usually mean more drinking. Straining, small frequent amounts, blood in the urine or peeing outside the box are all worth logging next to the water.
A cat straining in the litter box with little or no urine is an emergency, especially a male: a blocked urethra is life-threatening and needs a vet now. FelineSense keeps water and the litter box on one screen for exactly this reason.
Source: Cornell Feline Health Center (Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease) · AAFP
At home
How to measure your cat’s water intake
Getting a number you can trust
- Use one bowl or fountain you can fill to a mark. Each time you top it up, measure the water it takes to get back to the mark, and write it down.
- Measure for at least three days before drawing conclusions. Intake bounces around from day to day.
- In a warm, dry room some water simply evaporates. A matching bowl somewhere your cat cannot reach shows how much.
- With more than one cat, the bowl gives you the household total. The litter box often shows who is drinking more.
- Note what your cat eats. A switch from dry to wet food will lower bowl drinking, and that is expected.
Logging it beats trusting memory, and it turns a vague worry into numbers a vet can use. More on the rest of the health log on the health tracker page, and on the other numbers worth knowing in normal vital signs for a cat.
In the app
The bowl, the box and the record
Questions
Frequently asked
How much water should a cat drink a day?
My cat hardly drinks water. Is that normal?
How much water is too much for a cat?
Why is my cat suddenly drinking so much water?
How do I measure how much water my cat drinks?
Do cats need a water fountain?
FelineSense keeps the bowl target for your own cat, from their weight and main food, logs every top-up and litter box visit, and charts it so a change shows early.
See the app