This tumblr post makes the interesting claim that if a cat's water is placed near its food, the cat will consider the water to be unsafe to drink, and that cats will be more inclined to drink it if it is placed in another room.
The most people put the water bowl next to the food bowl.
This makes the water soiled from the cats point of view!
Why?
Because outdoors water is often contaminated if dead meat is next to it (aka an animal corpse, cat food)
If you put the water bowl next to the cat food the cat is worrying due to it’s instincts that the water could poison it.
That’s the reason why cats often prefered water that’s far away from the food source. Even toilet water seems cleaner and less dangerous for them! Solution?
In our home the water bowl is in another room. While the food bowl is in the kitchen, the water is in the bed room.
Since we changed that our cats are drinking much more water and seemed even healtheir because of that!
Is there any evidence that cats follow this behavior?