[FairOpinion]

CLEVER creativity . . . bengal cat Simha drinks from a tap courtesy of an infra-red device invented by his eight-year-old owner Lucas Haynes. Lucas, who has dyslexia, won a Victorian Primary School Science award for the invention.

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Neat story about a bright, inventive kid, despite his dyslexia and a lucky wild cat.

[FairOpinion]

"But the gifted primary school student is a genius at taming his wild cat's jungle habits. "

Neat story about an inventive kid and his tame bengal cat.

Kitty PING

[RightWingAtheist]

I'm guessing that the cat will only drink from the faucet because it still has an instinctive drive to seek out running water as source of replenishment, and to avoid stagnant water bodies.

Our otherwise fussy Siamese didn't have any such hang-ups. She drank straight from the toilet.

[dighton]

A cross between an Asian leopard and a domestic moggie, Lucas's rare bengal cat, Simha, is genetically driven to drink only running water.

Beautiful kitties, above my paygrade.

Simha means lion, as in Simba or the Sikh honorific Singh.

[beyond the sea]

meow to creativity

[flying Elvis]

"Brilliant" and "invention" are a bit of an overstatement. These things have been in use in public restrooms for over fifteen years.

[Antioch]

[Yaelle]

Bengal and clever child bump! I have both of them!

[pbmaltzman]

It's my understanding that Bengals sold as pets by breeders are at least a couple of generations removed from the wild. They did cross the Asian wild cat with domestic cats, but the offspring of such crosses are crossed again with each other to breed true over several more generations. So, specimens of the Bengal domestic breed retain *some* wild traits in addition to looking wild (I've read that Bengals are *very* active), but are much tamer than a true wild cat.

As for cats liking to drink running water, I've had a couple of them who liked to drink from the bathroom sink faucet.

There are now several kinds of cat drinking fountains sold, in catalogues and pet stores, which have a reservoir and a pump to provide a stream of running water. They also have filters, etc., to keep the water clean and aerated.

The two cats I have now seem content to drink out of either regular bowls or long-term drinkers with plastic jugs that refill the bowls by gravity alone.

[pbmaltzman]

I also hope the kid's parents are able to get him some of the newer, possibly more high-tech help for dyslexics and enable him to learn to read okay. Sounds like he is very intelligent, but obviously learning to read would be a good thing.

[Casloy]

Not to take anything away from the kid's inventive brilliance, but wouldn't a simple champagne fountain using water instead of champagne done exactly the same thing?

[Lion Den Dan]

of an infra-red device invented by his eight-year-old owner Lucas Haynes. Lucas, who has dyslexia, won a Victorian Primary School Science award for the invention.

Neat, feel good story but no deal here. The IR activated valve is found in countless public restrooms throughout the U.S.. It flushes when you move away and turns on taps when you present your hands for washing. These systems have been around longer than this kid has been alive.

[ryan71]

"He invented and built an infra-red water saver – a device that detects Simha approaching the bath and turns on the tap for him."

Invented? It's called a motion detector and you have one on the front of your house to turn lights on.

"A friendly engineer in his street helped him find the parts."

Here, Kid, use this motion detector to turn on this solenoid valve. Hey, nice invention.

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