Muffin and the Fountain

When I was driving home today from running errands, I was thinking about Muffin and his water thing (for new readers, he loves drinking water wherever he can find it). And then I remembered that several years ago I had a few decorative fountains going in the house--I love the sound of a fountain and they are quite simple to make. I had two problems with those fountains--first, the cats kept drinking out of them so I was refilling often, and also deposits from our well water ended up on whatever decorative elements I had in the fountain (glass stones, sea shells, what-have-you). It was easy enough to keep refilling with fresh water, but eventually I had to remove everything and thoroughly wash all the stones or shells.

Well, that would not be a problem if I made a fountain with basically no decorative elements, and having the cat drinking out of it would be the point. So when I got home I found an old bowl, one of the pumps (the kind used in aquariums), and a few large stones to weigh down the cord and pump in the bowl. Muffin had his head in the thing during the entire construction period, of course.

And then I set it on the dresser near the self-feeder and plugged it in (very safely and out of his reach, of course).

He first batted his paw at the plume of water coming out of the pump, then licked the water off his paw.



And then he just drank from it like a regular drinking fountain.



He was there a long time. I guess he likes it! (We'll just keep a bottle of water in there for refilling when necessary.)