Thread: Monty still not drinking enough… advice is welcome

Sorry for the long post, but I am a bit worried and confused. In order to help Monty to get rid of the cystitis, I am trying to coax him into drinking more. But somehow he has lost interest in even the things he used to love. He won’t touch fish water and rice water. And when I mix wet food with some water, he hardly wants anything of it. He’ll only eat wet food with no extra water.
The funny thing is, the girls have followed this pattern! But at least they still drink from the water bowls.

Yesterday we had to collect a urine sample by putting plastic grains in his litter box. The vet had advised us to shut the girls in the bedroom so Monty would have the house to himself. That way, he’d feel more at ease and wouldn’t suppress his urge…

NOT! Poor little guy spent hours sitting on the landing before the closed bedroom door, listening to the girls’ complaints. So we had three stressed-out cats and not a single drop of Monty-pee.
Late in the afternoon we thought he’d suffered enough and took him to the vet. They’re a couple who share a practice, and this time we got the he-vet. He finally managed to extract some pee from poor Monty’s bladder, which was almost empty. He obviously hadn’t drunk anything for hours. The color of the urine was awful, like mud. Fortunately the vet didn’t find anything nasty in it. But of course he did urge us to get him to drink more.

He told us to put more drinking bowls all over the house. The reason being – he said – that cats can be very competitive when it comes to water. Even when they appear to be best buddies, they can try to prevent each other from drinking.
We already had three drinking bowls, so I doubled that number. The girls were quite curious and drank a bit from each of the new bowls. But Monty just sniffed the water. Later that evening I managed to get some water with milk in him, but I had to feed it to him with a teaspoon!

Also, I sent hubby off to the supermarket to get some cans of tuna and salmon in water, so we can use the fluid to ‘spice’ up the water. In an earlier post I already explained our problems with slimy cat fountains, so I don’t really want to go down that road again. But we’re getting a little aquarium pump for the large bowl in the kitchen to see how that works. Perhaps the bubbles in the water will get Monty interested.

Still, there are many questions on my mind. Such as:
Why would Monty suddenly lose interest in drinking, even flavored stuff… and why are the girls acting much the same?
What with the competition for water thing? I have never ever noticed any signs of that before… but the vet said it can be very subtle. Have any of you ever had experience with this?
Could there be another reason why a cat doesn’t want to drink?

I would be very grateful for your thoughts.
Cheers,
Anna