Cat obsessed with water, becoming a problem

[Anonymous]

My 14 year old cat, who has previously never been interested in water, started getting in the shower with DH and I about 4 weeks ago. He isn't drinking the water, he likes to get in and stand in the spray, and get absolutely soaked. It has escalated over the last few weeks, from getting in and back out, to getting in and not wanting to get out, to yowling at the shower door any time we'd go close to the bathroom.

However, I was out of town for work for 3 nights this week, just DH was home, and it escalated to the cat having to be shut out of the bedroom at 4 am the last 2 nights due to him yowling (extremely loud and with no end) at the shower.

I hoped coming home he would return to sleeping on the bed and only obsessing about the shower during the day. No luck. At 12:15 tonight, he started up with the yowling at the shower. DH shut him out of the bedroom. He was so loud, I went out to the living room, tried to snuggle with him, and he liked it for about 5 minutes - and went back to yowling at the bedroom door louder than ever. I ended up shutting him in our large laundry room, where he has a comfortable bed, litter box, food and water, simply so we can get some sleep, but I feel bad about it. He has always slept with me/us.

I even got him one of those fancy running water fountains last week, thinking maybe that would entertain him and give him his fill of running water. No luck.

He is generally healthy and sees a vet regularly (hyperthyroid and had some GI issues about 2 months ago, resolved by changing him to an Rx food). Feliway diffusers have never worked on him in the past.

I'm thinking I need to take him to the vet, do a full panel and confirm nothing has changed (his last one was about 4 months ago), and then if he checks out physically, ask for some sort of meds to calm a neurotic cat - kitty valium/prozac/whatever.

Any suggestions on other things we could do behaviorally? I hoped shutting him off from the bathroom would minimize his interest, out of sight out of mind, but it just ramps up his yowling. I want him to be able to come back and sleep with us and have free roam of the house without being so disruptive. I feel awful he is alone in the laundry room tonight!

[Anonymous]

Also, I work from home and he has full run of the house and access to me. During the day, he is mostly normal although will randomly go in the bathroom once or twice a day to yowl at the shower. I suspect that may be ramped up tomorrow but it's my first day back since Monday.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, last thing, while I have always called him a domestic short hair, we did find pictures of Turkish Angora cats, and he is a dead ringer for them, just with a shorter coat. Turkish Angoras are known to often like the water, although that doesn't explain why he is just discovering it and becoming rapidly increasingly obsessed at the age of 14.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps he has senility. Mine has always been obsessed with water. However, as her kitty mind started to go, she now can’t be trusted with any liquid filled container.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps he has senility. Mine has always been obsessed with water. However, as her kitty mind started to go, she now can’t be trusted with any liquid filled container.

Thanks, that is possible. He has gone through a few periods of not wanting to eat as much, although when we give him his favored food, he still gobbles it down (but we stopped giving it to him when the GI issues were going on).

The increased vocalizations and night anxiety line up with senility from what I see. It sounds like anti anxiety meds can help with that, since his quality of life is otherwise good (still using litterbox, purrs and snuggles and plays). If it is senility, that worries me about a downhill slide

[Anonymous]

I leave a an inch of fresh water in one of the tubs for my cat on hot days. She likes to get in and bat around her ping pong ball in the water.

Maybe you can leave some water in the tub for your cat to play in instead of the shower. Put in a ping pong ball or other light thing that will float for him.

[Anonymous]

I'd take him in to your vet. Maybe anti-anxiety meds would be helpful, and your vet can also talk to you about quality of life and signs to help you determine when it's time. 14 isn't the max lifespan of a cat, but it's a good ripe old age, and not all cats live to be 18-20.

[Anonymous]

My first thought was hyperthyroid, which you say he does have. When my cat developed hyperthyroid, she was extremely hyperactive at night. She also was drinking an insane amount of water day and night. I know you said your cat isn't drinking the water but it's definitely a weird obsession. Is he losing weight? It might be related to hyperthyroid. My cat eventually did the I-131 Radiocat treatment and that cleared up the problem.

[Anonymous]

My dog barks at the bathtub daily wanting to play in the bath. Animals are weird.

[Anonymous]

Being overly interested in water can be a sign of kidney failure, so can getting in the tub shower. We had one cat who died of this who exhibited this behavior. We have another old cat who is also overly interested in water right now and I have taken him to the vet repeatedly only to be told that his labs look fine and he is not in kidney failure. I would definitely schedule a visit and get blood drawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dog barks at the bathtub daily wanting to play in the bath. Animals are weird.

Dog love water so a dog begging to get into water is pretty dang normal.

Cats tend to hate water so a cat who is begging to get in the shower then playing in it is very, very unusual.

OP, if I were you I would make some videos of this behavior, including a leg shot (with swimsuit) of the cat begging then getting in the shower with one of you. I would then try to monetize it on youtube. You might end up making a ton of money on the videos, with the added bonus of not exploiting your kids.

[Anonymous]

I know nothing about feline hyperthyroidism, but can tell you that human hyperthyroidism can manifest as extreme anxiety and excitability, a racing heartbeat, and when you're in a thyroid storm, a feeling that you're about to die (and yes, you can die).

So please get that cat to a vet sooner rather later.

[Anonymous]

More cats like or even love water than people suspect. Ours is from a long line of horse farm working cats. A trough of water is a good place to play in her opinion.

[Anonymous]

Are you sure there are no roaches coming out of the shower drain? Some cats love to play with whatever lurks in the drain and peeks out in the middle of the night. My cat loves to sprawl out in the shower after someone has bathed but she has always been obsessed with water because she is a Maine coon.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all, sorry I'm slow to respond. I thought I had it figured out at 5 am the first night when he went crazy for drinking out of a plastic bowl vs his water fountain. I gave him a big bowl of water and he settled down and was good the next night.

Then he started back up. Then I thought I might have it with him hating his prescription cat food, and set out a plate of his old food for him. Helped but the yowling came back about 3:30 am.

Last couple nights he has fired up the yowling at random times and not only in front of the shower.

We havr a vet appointment later today. Full blood panel and exam. If they don't find anything I'll ask for some anti anxiety meds. Would be great if it's simply adjusting his thyroid meds (he has been stable for about 2 years but I know it's notoriously tricky). I have a suspicion it is something else. I think his stool and possibly urine output are down. :-/

He's totally normal other than this. Runs, jumps, purrs, never once gone outside his box, etc. -- hoping it's not his time. When we found the thyroid issue 3 years ago, we took him in to do the radioactive treatment, but they found a very large lung mass, assumed to be cancer. They told us he likely didn't have long to live with a mass that large, so we didn't do the radioactive treatment. Well 3 years later, here we are. We did another xray recently and it has grown a little bit, but not much and not encroaching on ability to breath or eat. Likely has been a slow growing mass there a loooooong time, and we'd never know if it wasn't for the screening for the radioactive treatment. I guess I've had my head around the lung tumor getting him for so long, it's hard to think about possible kidney issues, etc.