Water issues - need ideas for water bowl area - Page 3

huh....i may actually be able to help with this one....
i have a head dunker in a family, he used to dunk his head into a water bowl up to his eyes which if bowl was full would overflow  and than of course he wants to rub all over you and water spills out of his mouth as he walks away...i have hard wood floors and they were getting ruined so i started using my glass bake dish...its shallow standard baking dish (at first i used foil one but if he stepped on the edge it would fold) its only 2 inches deep and he cant dunk and he cant get mouth full yet there is enough for him and others to drink normally ...that solved my dunking head issue and even though i still get some dripping, it is no where near as bad as it used to be.

edit: the only down side you have to add water to it sometimes 2x a day...so they get fresh water morning and evening. I use $1.00 plastic pitcher which is exact amount that fits into a baking dish so i don't have to try balancing baking dish full of water while surrounded by dogs...

Thanks to all for the replies.  There are some great ideas to try and some products I'm looking into (don't know why I didn't get any of them to come up in my searches).

Ohh,I have a head dunker, too!

I used to put a pail of water outside for my two. This is what happened EVERY day!

Star would get hot chasing around with a toy. She' go to get a drink, and DROP THE TOY IN THE PAIL!

Then, Ranger would fish it out for her. He'd have to submerge his whole head to the eyeballs to fish it off the bottom.

I had to change the pail nearly every day: first, because Ranger would make it overflow, and second, because the toys would make it dirty! 

I stick my dog's water bowl in the back of an open crate. Unfortunately, he prefers toilet water.

I've had a string of 'waders', dogs that like to cool their tootsies in the water bowl after they've been bopping around outside in the summer.  Had 'em among my sled dogs, and haven't been without at least one GSD in the household that will do so, too.  Oddly enough, the wading successors always followed the departure of the previous wader in my life, so it must be something in the personality of the dogs I'm drawn to that predisposes them to the habit.  Fortunately, they quickly learn that I'll allow the behavior outside, but not in the house.  Haven't been as successful in convincing them that they can't play 'bobbing for dog toys' in the inside water bowls, though...

"and DROP THE TOY IN THE PAIL!"

One of my girls likes to drop her balls in the water bowl, drink some, get the ball soaking wet and then she'll bring it back to me to throw again.  The extra weight gives the balls some extra distance and bounce and I'm convinced she uses it to rehydrate while she's playing.  She taught the other one to do it and now I say they're 'washing their balls'...which the kiddo finds hilarious .
 

I have used one of those large black Rubbermaid tubs (10gal size)  I then freeze a large cube of Ice and place in the middle.  As it melts my dogs get nice cold water, but don't have the option of splashing it around.  (Well, except for Ikon, who lifted the entire chunk of Ice and presented it to me in the middle of my back when I was sleeping on the sofa... He is quite creative on ways to torture me!)

Some of these posts really gave me a good laugh! My female is such a dainty, polite drinker. Even when she's dying of thirst after playing outside she will quietly lick from the bowl and not spill a drop. My male, on the other hand, thinks the world is just a big wave pool and flings his head around. I have literally found puddles of water two rooms over from where the water bowl is!! It's so disgusting and I am guilty of holding my breath and keeping very still when he drinks so as not to distract him LOL. It helps, only slightly, but every drop counts.

Keeping water outside all the time is not an option for me so I have a large, wide water bowl in my kitchen and a small pail in a crate upstairs. The kitchen bowl causes an enormous mess and interestingly my male often prefers to drink out of the tiny water pail upstairs. I have it hung about half way up inside his crate and he can barely get his snoot inside of it which means the water is very contained and there is minimal drippage. If you are interested in the size of it I can go look and see how many oz. it holds. Good luck, you aren't suffering alone!