Splish-Splash

I can always tell when Grumbles has recently been drinking. There will generally be a trail of wet footprints on the wood floors between the kitchen and living room. Often times, when he hops up on me, afterwards, it will be with extraordinarily wet paws. Sometimes, I can tell because of the spots of water that show up on my laptop's screen when he decides, "my paw's too wet, I need to shake some of this water off."

Now, why would his paws be so wet as to create this various phenomena? I point you to the picture, below:

Drinking from IN the Dish

Take a (not very) close look, and you'll see that he's standing in the dish to drink. This isn't an occasional thing; this is an allthegoddamnedtime thing. The only thing that really varies is whether he has just his right paw in or both paws in as he drinks.

You might notice Grumbles's very shiny, spotty coat. He's a Bengal. Bengals have very striking markings and are very shiny. Bengals also love water. Mine have been known to hop onto the edge of the tub, as I shower, if I fail to close the doors to keep them out. They also love to play in their water dishes. Before settling into the pose, above, they will frequently frolic in the water, first. Thus, we have to have a plastic mat under the dish. Because of how actively they frolic, a plastic mat simply isn't enough: we have to add a beach towel.

The towel has to be changed out every few days because of how much water gets slapped out onto it. Because of how frequently they have to be changed (and because of things like dog bathing), we have a collection of "pet towels".

Ah, pet ownership...