Why is my cat drinking less water than usual?
Usually the bowl. A stale or badly placed bowl is the most common reason a cat drinks less; refreshing the water daily and moving the bowl away from food and litter often fixes it. The second possibility is diet: if she’s eating canned food, which is at least 75 percent water, she may simply not need much from the bowl. The third, the one to take seriously, is illness or pain. Dental disease can make drinking uncomfortable; some chronic illnesses depress thirst; and dehydration can make a cat lethargic enough to stop drinking, which deepens the dehydration. Watch the trend over a few days, not a few hours.
When to call a vet: if she also seems lethargic, won’t eat or has dry or tacky gums, see a vet promptly, since dehydration is often a symptom of something else.
