Is your kitten really afraid of water?

It certainly is true that kittens don’t love water, but they don’t hate it either. What you’re seeing when you try to bathe your kitten is natural aversion, not hydrophobia. He is simply afraid of the unknown.

Kittens are not programmed to like water. They wash themselves with their tongue and prefer moist food to a drink every time. If a kitten gets wet, even after a light shower, he will spend hours washing and drying himself, just to keep his coat smooth. So you can imagine that recovering from a bath is going to cost him a lot in time and energy alone. In the wild, cats rarely get into contact with water, either, since their natural environments are forests, savannah and prairies at a distance from the sea.

Having said all this, however, kittens do like water at times. For instance, you will often see a kitten happily trying to catch water drops from a leaking tap. Kittens who live in close proximity to goldfish are happy to demonstrate their swimming skills and some breeds like water so much that they will jump into their owner’s bath. Turkish Van cats are particularly fond of swimming and another notable example is the Bengal cat who shares his love of water with his bigger cousin, the tiger.

Love it or loath it though, your kitten certainly needs water and you must make sure he has enough to drink in order to avoid potential problems with his kidneys.