We Love Water
One of the most popular pieces of Bengal ‘folklore’ involves their liking for water. Bengals have sometimes been reported to play happily in quite deep water and, even to like swimming! Well some Bengals may well do this, but if you’re after a swimming cat, you’d be better off with a Turkish Van. Though they aren’t all swimmers, most Bengals are definitely fond of water. When I bought my Bengal, the breeders commented on how he had a ‘swishing’ action he used across his drinking water with his paw before drinking, which appeared to be a development of the action used by the Asian Leopard Cats in nature to clear the surface of ponds before drinking.
However, once my cat discovered the mugs of water on my bedside table, this ‘swishing’ became a game of totally different proportions! He gleefully splashed about in the mug with his paw, sprinkling water all around the room. A gentle rain became a fairly common feature of my nights, until he grew out of this phase!