Ice-Cube Fishing Bowl

🧺 You will need

• A wide, shallow, heavy-bottomed bowl (a pie dish or roasting tin works well)
• Ice cubes — plain, or frozen from unsalted broth
• A ping-pong ball or a cork
• A few pieces of freeze-dried treat or a small piece of cooked chicken
• A towel or bath mat to go underneath

🔧 How to make it

1. Choose a spot with a hard, easily mopped floor and lay the towel down. This game is wet, and pretending otherwise leads to a soaked carpet.
2. Fill the bowl with cool water to a depth of about 3cm — shallow enough that the cat can reach the bottom easily with one paw.
3. Drop in three or four ice cubes. The clinking and the drifting movement are what catch the cat's attention.
4. Add a ping-pong ball or cork, which bobs away from a paw in a satisfyingly unpredictable manner.
5. Float or sink a small treat as the prize, and let your cat work out how to get it.
6. Stay in the room for the first session and let the cat approach in its own time — do not lift it to the bowl.
7. Refresh with new ice as it melts, and top the water up as the level drops.

💡 Tips

This taps into a behaviour most cats already have — paw-dipping and water-batting are extremely common, and many cats prefer to drink from moving water rather than a still bowl. Freezing unsalted chicken or fish broth into the cubes makes the game considerably more compelling and adds flavour to the water as they melt. A wide bowl matters more than it sounds: narrow bowls press on the whiskers, which cats dislike. In hot weather, half an hour of this does more for hydration than a week of nagging a cat to drink.

📝 Notes

Best on hot days. Tip the water away afterwards rather than leaving a bowl of stale water and melted treat crumbs standing.

🎬 Related videos

• Cats Take Turns Playing With Ice Cubes in a Water Bowl
• Cat Playing With an Ice Cube in a Water Bowl