Do cats prefer to drink water that is cold, warm or hot?

Room temperature, and fresh. What they really like best is running water. I bought a little circulating fountain for my cat. He loves it.

I fill two indoor bowls and one outdoor one daily with cool water. Then whenever I flush a toilet, Milo come running and drinks out of the bowl. He also is interested in post-shower water in the tub.

My cats will drink it from anywhere, like Milo. They enjoy the tub after anyone has showered, a nice drink from the toilet, and we fill the bowls when they need it. They share two with a dog, and he likes ice in his every once in a while, my cats don’t seem to mind ice.

I think room temperature goes over best.

My cat stalks us until we get out of the tub or shower so she can lick the drips from the faucet.

My cat prefers it ice cold.

The cats I’ve had liked it cold. One cat would only drink water if we put a water rooted plant in the water dish. This cat we would always find drinking out of a vase. It was concluded that the cat wanted the nitrates the plants provided. Once we put a plant in the water bowl, this was never an issue.

My cats love the circulating, filtered water and I think they like it cold. They all come running when they hear me filling it up. They get Brita water straight from the fridge.

@gailcalled, NASTY!

@tinyfaery fancy! hehe

They want it fresh mostly, but secondary to that, they like it warm, like 80 degrees. Especially in the winter.

One of our cats prefers to drinks from toilet so that MUST always remain clean and he too like Milo doesn’t mind the bathtub. Our other cat drinks from the dogs water bowl which is room temp. Now our African Grey parrot will only bath in ice water, go figure!

Cold I’ve found. I think it’s a conditioned evolutionary thing that the place you’re most likely to find cold water is straight from a stream, river or lake. If water is warm that means it’s likely to have been sitting around, and when water sits around it goes stagnant and gets nasty stuff growing in it which could be harmful.

@gailcalled, @casheroo Our cat likes to jump into the bathtub right after you’ve showered too so he can lick the sides of the tub.

Cats dislike standing water, fresh or not, cold or room temp. In fact, most cats who do not have access to running water will be dehydrated all the time. This usually isn’t a big problem for them because they have awesome kidneys, but it is why most cats’ pee smells strongly of ammonia – it’s too concentrated, because the cat isn’t getting enough water. However, this can be a big problem for male cats, who are prone to urinary troubles because of their extremely long and narrow urethra. I’ve known two perfectly healthy male cats who died from FLUTD, and my own buddy almost bit it a few years ago, which is when I learned all this. A cat fountain is a cheap and simple way to get your cat to hydrate himself more, and is much safer than letting him drink out of the toilet. I own the model I linked to, and it’s quiet, easy to clean, and has lasted three years so far.

The issue with the toilet is actually not so much the bacteria from waste – as mentioned above, we clean this out – but is that the chemicals from cleaning the toilet are bad to drink (unless, I’d imagine, you clean your toilet with bleach-free organic stuff, I guess). Keep the lid down, folks.

I have 2 cats I got from a shelter, one is a shorthair (Pumpkin) and the other one looks like a Norweigen Forrest Cat (Pie). Both cats are less than 1 year old and Pie (Norweigen Forrest Cat) loves to dring the ice water out of my plastic glasses. I live in Florida and I always have my air conditioner running but Pie wants my water over his bowl water. I put ice in his bowl many times because of this. Pumpkin never drinks out of my glass. I change the cats bowl of water at least 2 times a day.

My previous answer needs to be restated more correctly:

All cats dislike standing water, or dirty water, or water that contains chunks from their meal.

But outside of those commonalities, each cat is different when it comes to temperature preference.