Dish...(es)

I may have mentioned previously that our cats love water.  That is a bit of an understatement.  Kimi-Cat,  as a kitten, actually fell into the toilet when she was watching the water swirl down the drain - and it didn't upset her.  Katsu sleeps in wet sinks - she waits until you are done washing your face or brushing your teeth and then curls up.  Wet showers with dripping water are wonderful places to relax or play depending on your kitty mood.  Barring those sources of water, the kitchen sink is a good spot to get wet.

Rufus particularly loves getting the kitchen floor soaking wet by playing in his water dish. When he drank, he used to put one foot in the water no doubt holding the water dish still so it wouldn't run away. When the kittens got bigger,  we got a bigger dish and he began putting both feet into the water dish.  We started to suspect that he was trying to wash his feet after using the litter box - which would explain why his sisters would go thirsty until we rinsed and refilled the water bowl. After all, who wants to drink water with litter at the bottom and your brother's fur floating at the top?

From "washing his feet" he graduated to pushing the water around with his paws, batting at it to  make waves.   He seemed to never tire of it.  It came to be routine to pick him up for a cuddle and wind up with two very wet kitty feet on your chest.


 Then the large puddles began to appear.  At first we thought it was an accident.  Then we noticed that prior to the floor becoming wet there were ominous thumping sounds coming from the kitchen.  It was Rufus rocking the water bowl...up onto the edge of the tray, back down onto the tray - oh the splashing of the water was wonderful!  We got a bigger heavier bowl.  The thumping got louder as he figured out how to get the dish completely off of the tray and onto the floor.
 
We got a water bowl with no lip on it so that he could not get his paws underneath the bowl.  This did not deter him.  Rufus is nothing if not determined, especially when it comes to water and to strawberry ice cream.  It was more difficult for him to move the  bowl, but he could do it, sadly swamping the food tray as well as the floor.  This meant that if he played with the water bowl early in the morning, there was the potential for three cats to be without drinking water (or food) for the entire day.
 
Last weekend we purchased a "spill proof bowl" that has a cover on it with just a little hole in the middle for the cat to access the water - no space for standing in the water while drinking, no space for playing in the water...  this would WORK we thought excitedly.  Somebody with a cat like Rufus had come up with a solution - NOT.
 
Within the first hour, he had figured out how to lift the bowl by it's cover and dump it upside down on the floor...
 
We got a large ceramic (heavy) bowl.  It is quite ugly, but has the advantage of weighing a ton (well, probably 2 pounds).  And Rufus doesn't appear to be able to move the bowl.  Unfortunately the glazed interior has a black pattern on the bowl's bottom that stands out beautifully against its white background.
 
And for the last two days, Rufus has dilligently been trying to remove the pattern from the bottom of the bowl.  first with one paw, then with the other.
 
I give up.