A while ago, Reuben started having accidents all over the house. When we took him to the vet, we found he had crystals in his urine! Apparently, cats get this by not drinking enough water and eating the wrong types of food. So the vet started him on some special (and expensive!) food, and we decided to look for a solution to get him to drink more water.
In our house with three young children, we generally kept a bowl of water out on the landing. The only problem was it would get all dirty with hair, kids would spill it, and we would occasionally forget to refill it in the hecticness of daily life. So we decided to look into a cat water fountain.At Amazon, they had a lot of options. We ruled out the less expensive ones pretty quickly. They didn't get that great of reviews. Also, we liked the idea of flowing water, as the vet had said that might entice Reuben to drink more.
The one we ended up deciding on was the Drinkwell. It has a charcoal filter to take out any nasties from our city water, as well as some cute options like plants you can put in it. It got some really good reviews on Amazon. The only problem is that it plugs in, so we had to find somewhere else to put it!