Why Do Dogs Drink out of the Toilet? Can an Everpure Water Filtration System Help Combat This Behavior?
If a pup is a part of your family, then you’re probably familiar with the fact that some dogs have a propensity to hit up the local bathroom bar for a beverage. Not all dogs do it, but it’s common enough behavior that it has become stereotypical of canine behavior. Dogs, especially when it’s hot out, hit the bathroom for a drink from the toilet.
We know. Disgusting, by any metric you want to use, and unpleasant even to think about. But if you’re going to turn this behavior around, you need to think about it. That is, you need to understand why they do it - and, as it turns out, a solution as simple as an Everpure water filtration system may be able to convince your dog to stop.
Your pup is, after all, a member of your family, and deserves the same quality drinking water you do!
A Cool Drink of Water
One of the most basic reasons that dogs tend to head for the bathroom when they need a drink belies surprisingly human behavior: it’s about refreshment.
Whereas people drop ice into their drinks, dogs head for the toilet bowl. Again, disgusting, but true.
The thing is that the water in your dog’s water bowl might be fresh from the tap, but it’s going to heat up to ambient temperature pretty quickly. The water contained in the porcelain bowl of the toilet will shed heat more readily (porcelain is a good conductor of heat) and is likely to be cool.
And, again, though it sounds gross, if it’s recently been flushed, it may be even cooler, which is very attractive to dogs, especially when it’s really hot out.
So one of the reasons that dogs seek the respite of the bathroom when they need a drink is because the water is cooler, and therefore, from their perspective, more refreshing.
Ironically - It Smells Better
There is another, perhaps even more interesting reason that dogs stereotypically seek the bathroom for a sip. Ironically, it has to do with the smell and flavor of the water.
While it might seem to use that little on this earth is less appealing than the water sitting in a toilet bowl, to a dog’s keen senses, toilet bowl water may actually smell (and possibly taste) better than the water from the tap.
To understand this, we need to take a few steps back. We treat water with chlorine, which is a highly reactive chemical agent that kills a variety of microbes. Think of that “chlorine” smell that you probably recognize from your time around pools. That’s actually not chlorine, but chloramines, the by-products produced when chlorine interacts with infectious agents and destroys them.
If it is an unpleasant smell for you, imagine how unpleasant it is for a dog, whose senses of smell are so many times more powerful than a human’s.
The thing is, chlorine quickly evaporates from water that is exposed to the air. While water from the tap may be full of it, the water that has been sitting in the toilet likely has none or little left, which means it both smells and tastes better to your dog.
Weird, but true.
So, Is It a Big Deal?
We won’t stand on our own merits for this, but yes, it is kind of a big deal. It’s not a good idea to let your dog drink from the toilet. According to the American Kennel Club (AKC), we’re right, and there are some obvious reasons for this.
For one, people routinely clean their toilets with harsh chemical agents, in order to keep them clean, safe, and sterile. These are often toxic chemicals that are not safe for ingestion - and your dog may actually ingest them if he or she drinks from the toilet.
The other reason is more straightforward. This is a toilet we’re talking about after all: a receptacle for waste. Even a very clean toilet is still a toilet, and likely to be rife with germs. That is, you don’t want your dog to be drinking out of it.
Interestingly, something as simple as an Everpure water filtration system may be able to help you rectify this undesirable pet behavior.
How an Everpure Water Filtration System Can Help
An Everpure water filtration system, such as one that takes H300 Water Filters, is tested to remove chlorine from the water. These filter cartridges can remove chlorine taste from the water while improving overall taste and odor. They’re also tested to remove lead and other metals as well as parasitic cysts.
That is, they improve the flavor of the water, which your pup will appreciate. As for the temperature, if it’s hot out, throw an ice cube or a few in your pup’s bowl!
Get in Touch with Our Customer Service!
Want to learn more about how an Everpure water filtration system works and can improve the quality of drinking water for your family, including your pets? Check out the previous link or get in touch with us at info@efilters.net. We’d be happy to help!