This is a specific conversation about Cat hydration — getting cats to drink more — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
Your vet is spot on — hydration genuinely helps hairballs move through the digestive system rather than getting stuck and coming back up. Cats evolved in arid environments and have a naturally low thirst drive, so most cats on dry food are chronically underhydrated without their owners realising it. Kidney disease is the leading cause of death in older cats, and hairball troubles are often a sign the gut isn't moving as well as it should — both problems that better hydration directly addresses. Water fountains and wet food are the two most effective ways to get more fluid into a cat. To point you toward the right thing: is your Chartreux on dry food, wet food, or a mix? And have you tried a fountain before?
He's mostly on dry kibble, we give him a bit of wet food a couple of times a week. No fountain yet — never really thought about it until the vet mentioned it.
inparticular.ai
That's a pretty common setup, and honestly nudging the wet food up a bit would already help. But a fountain will make the biggest single difference for a dry-food-heavy cat. Cats are instinctively drawn to moving water — it signals freshness — so they just drink more from a fountain than a still bowl, often significantly more. For a 6-year-old Chartreux with a hairball history, I'd want something quiet, with a gentle flow, and easy to keep clean so you actually stay on top of it. Does he have any other health issues, or is the hairball thing the main concern?
Just the hairballs really. He's otherwise healthy, a bit lazy but that's just him. He can be a bit suspicious of new things though.
inparticular.ai
A cautious cat is actually a good thing to know — it means placement and the noise level of the fountain matter more than usual. My recommendation is the Catit Flower Fountain (2-litre version). It has a very gentle, adjustable flow, runs quietly, and the flower-petal design lets cats drink from the stream or from the basin around it, so a wary cat can approach it on their own terms without feeling forced into anything. It's widely available, straightforward to clean, and the replacement filters are cheap and easy to find. For a Chartreux on mostly dry food with hairball issues, it's genuinely the most practical starting point — and most cats convert to it within a week or two.
That sounds manageable. How often does it need cleaning, and do I need to do anything special to get him used to it?
inparticular.ai
Rinse the bowl and refill it every two to three days, and do a proper clean with the filter swap every two to three weeks — it takes about five minutes once you've done it once. For introduction, put it near his current water bowl to start, let him sniff it unplugged for a day, then switch it on. Don't take the old bowl away straight away. Most suspicious cats come round within a week once they realise the moving water is appealing. The Catit Flower Fountain is around £20–25 on Amazon UK, and replacement filters come in multi-packs so you're not constantly reordering.
Great, I'll give it a go. Should I also try increasing the wet food at the same time?
inparticular.ai
Yes, absolutely — they work well together and there's no reason to pick one over the other. If you can get him up to wet food once a day rather than a couple of times a week, that alone adds a meaningful amount of moisture to his diet. The fountain handles the hydration between meals. Between the two, most cats with hairball issues see a noticeable improvement within a few weeks — fewer incidents, and when they do occur the hairball tends to pass more easily rather than being repeatedly vomited up. Your vet gave you good advice.
