Lol...My cat will only drink water from a glass on the work top, next option is the toilet!!
Put out left overs for him...pah!! He'd rather rip the bin bag open to have them. If we put left overs in his bowl he turns his nose up. It's either eat with us 'treat me as an equal' or shove it up your ass and I'll show you the damage I can do to a bin bag.
My cats ignore their water dish but both drink out of the water in that little plastic thingy for refilling the iron. Max will also drink out of the tap.
When it is raining they look at me like it's my fault.
Having said that, they only use the litter tray if they have to, as they prefer to use the garden.
Yes, Basil does all of those. Although in addition to drinking from fishponds and puddles, he also likes to drink out of the glass on the bedside table (it's tap water, same as in his bowl), and quite often will work his way along a window ledge licking raindrops off the window. It probably makes perfect sense to him.
Smowball I've yet to be owned by a cat that is prepared to lay outside in the rain. They glare at me as if I have control of the taps in the clouds.
One observation here. Best smell in the world is a wet cat. Worst smell in the world, and this comes below vagrants and chemical plants, is that of a wet dog.
since getting married we have had 3 black and white cats, one queen (doctored) and two toms (rescued) all have lived with us , all different characters, on their terms not ours, but they do make lives.
why are cats said to hate the water. I was miles away singining to myself in the shower when I heard this thump [I nearly jumped out of my skin] the cat had jumped in to join me. He did this several times but always remained the opposite end of the shower tap!!
When I lived in the UAE I had a cat that drank from the toilet bowl and paraded round the bath when I lay in it, although he had a few accidents when he fell in.
When my little middle eastern adoptee fell in the bath I left it at a great rate of knots. I was naked, as would be expected of anyone in a bath, and they have claws; need I say more?