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Never thought my coffee addiction would almost kill one of my four cats I'm a novelist, and I live with four cats who all came from the same mother and somehow turned out with four completely different personalities. Lyly, Pat, Mio, and Chub. The one in the photo is Chub. I think the name tells you most of what you need to know. He will eat anything he sees a human put in their mouth. He has already been hospitalized once for eating something toxic. His history with food has been, let's say, eventful. Because I spend most of my day writing, coffee is one of my great loves. And I started noticing that every time I made a hot cup, all four cats would drift over to it. Every single day, the second they heard the beans grinding in the machine, they'd come tearing across the apartment and start begging like I was withholding the one thing that gave their lives meaning. The first time they actually drank it was the day I'd just finished making a cup when my publisher showed up to drop off some documents. I set the cup down on the table and went to get the door, and when I came back all four cats were licking spilled coffee off the entire table. I'd bet money Chub started it. He had the most coffee on his face by a wide margin. Then there was Mio, who sniffed it, backed away, and did that little paw-scraping motion like he was trying to bury it in a litter box. Pat took one taste and turned into a working actor, gagging and retching over and over until I genuinely thought he'd been poisoned, and then he shot me a look and walked off. Rude cat. Lyly seemed to love the smell more than the taste. And Chub licked the cup until there was nothing left. After that day, Chub started stealing my coffee constantly, and even after finishing a cup he'd lick whatever was left at the bottom. I tried hiding coffee beans inside Lyly and Chub's toys and the two of them nearly lost their minds. I ended up writing an entire chapter about it that I called Kitty Cocaine. The obsession was genuinely unhinged. Chub eats everything, so that part wasn't new, but I had never seen him fixate on one thing like this. When my mom visited, she'd drink her coffee black with no sugar, and Chub would get so intense about it that she thought she was being attacked. I tried wearing a coffee-scented perfume once and all four of them looked at me like I was prey. When friends came over, the cats acted like there were rivals in the house, demanding I hold them and refusing to let anyone near. Somewhere in there I started to realize that cats and coffee were a real problem, not a cute one. It came to a head one night when I heard something shatter in the kitchen. My first thought was a ghost, because I write fiction and my imagination gets away from me. It was Chub. He had gotten the bean hopper open on the coffee machine, and by the time I got downstairs I found him chewing whole beans with the deadest eyes I have ever seen on an animal. He looked like an addict. My machine has a flip lid, not a screw top, so one hard swat pops it open. I never once considered that a cat could work out exactly how much force that would take. The next morning was the real end of coffee in my house. Chub got more and more hyper, then crashed hard, and then he started showing signs of a seizure. I cut off a meeting with my publisher mid-sentence and rushed him to the hospital. The vet's first suspicion was his heart, and she told me it was serious. She asked me to photograph every food and supplement I'd been giving him so she could narrow it down. When I got home and saw the half-finished cup of coffee still sitting next to Lyly, I drove straight to the city library, and that was where I finally understood what had actually caused the seizures. It was the coffee. I still cannot believe that a writer, of all people, forgot this. Here is what I learned. Cats and dogs are far more sensitive to caffeine than we are. A sip or two of coffee, tea, or soda usually isn't enough to poison most pets. But eating coffee grounds, whole beans, tea bags, or caffeine supplements can be seriously toxic. The big sweetened, creamy coffee drinks are especially dangerous, because they're appealing to pets and often packed with extra shots. Depending on how much they get into, you can see hyperactivity, stomach upset, changes in heart rate and rhythm and blood pressure, and neurological signs including tremors and seizures. A healthy cat licking a drop or two now and then is fine. Chub had eaten who knows how many beans. It's the same family of compounds that makes chocolate dangerous. Coffee has caffeine, chocolate has theobromine, and both belong to the same group of stimulants that pets can't process the way we do. I called the vet right after, and they told me to press my ear to the other cats' chests and listen to their hearts. I got chills listening to Lyly, Pat, and Mio. I had no idea a cat's heart beat that fast normally. If a heart already runs that quick, I couldn't imagine what adding caffeine on top would do. Chub was in the hospital for two days. The vet told me that if I had brought him in thirty minutes later, his heart might not have held. She told me that in the days after, I needed to make sure Chub drank more water than usual, to help his heart and kidneys recover. That was the moment it hit me. The plastic fountain in the corner of my kitchen was always full, and not because they weren't thirsty. They just wouldn't touch it. They much preferred drinking from the spigot in the backyard, because cats are wired to love running water, but a lead contamination scare in our neighborhood water the year before had made me shut off the outdoor taps unless I actually needed them. And that plastic fountain grew a thick layer of slime almost immediately if I didn't scrub it every single day, and I mean a lot of slime. The vet even floated the idea of adding a single drop of decaf to their water at first, just to ease Chub and Lyly off the fixation. I want to be clear, I never ended up needing to do that. Because the real problem was the fountain itself. I'd scrubbed that plastic so many times that it was covered in tiny scratches, which meant microplastics, and after everything with Chub I had become intensely sensitive about anything my four cats put in their bodies. I went to the vet clinic near my house, since they also sell pet supplies, and every fountain on their shelves had a plastic spout and a plastic reservoir. But in their own care area, they were using stainless steel fountains, the same 304 grade as the insulated bottle I carry around. I asked what those cost, and they told me they'd actually stopped selling them, because the plastic ones move better. They come in prettier shapes and colors, so people gravitate to them. The stainless ones aren't as cute, but they're safer, and I'd already noticed the local rescue using the same material for their bowls and kennels. It limits the spread of infection because bacteria can't grab onto the surface, and it wipes clean as easily as my thermos and my metal straw. So I went looking online, and there were plenty of options, but a lot of them were only half stainless, with a plastic reservoir underneath. Others claimed to be "all stainless" without ever telling you which grade. That matters, because 304 is the one that's reliably food-safe. The cheaper grades like 201 and 430 corrode and pit over time, which is exactly the kind of surface you don't want water sitting in. I found a brand that specifically committed to 304, and right when I did they were running a buy one get one deal, which felt perfect, because with four cats and two of them as picky as Lyly and Pat, nobody was going to have to fight over water. I'll be honest, I completely forgot the brand name while I was drafting this and had to dig through my email to find it. When it arrived, I used it for about two weeks before I noticed one of the two had a small, honestly negligible dent. I wasn't even going to bother returning it, but Cattasaurus has a policy that lets you return within 90 days even after you've used it. Their reply was a little slow, but they did send me a brand new one, even though my cats had already been drinking from it. I never had to try the vet's decaf idea. My cats went to the new fountain on their own. I'll admit I drop an ice cube in it, and here's the thing. With the old plastic fountain, the slime was bad enough that Lyly and Pat and even Chub would refuse the water no matter how cold it was. With the stainless one, I just drop two or three small ice cubes in every day, and it's somehow become their favorite thing in the world. The only casualty was Mio, whose favorite snack is now gone, because there's no power cord. Mio once managed to shock himself chewing through the cord on the old fountain. Haha. Before I wrap this up, I want you to remember what I now know about my four kids. They are relentlessly curious creatures who want to smell everything, including my coffee, partly because Chub is a spoiled, pampered cat who I let eat and drink out of my own cup and plate, and partly because it was simply an unfamiliar smell to them. My honest advice is to let your cat sniff something new to take the edge off the curiosity, but stay alert, because too much of anything is bad. I got very lucky that I happened to be home that day instead of away on work. I can't let myself imagine coming back from a trip to find that I'd lost Chub. I love those four more than I can say. UPDATE: Chub has fully recovered, and his heart rhythm finally stabilized after two straight months of rechecks. The Cattasaurus fountain still keeps all four of them excited about drinking water. I'll leave the link below if you're interested.