Cole hardly ever jumped up on the counters, but then Marm arrived on the scene and was determined to be up there as much as possible! Nothing is off limits to Marm HAHA
We could have tried many other methods to deter him from being up there, but never saw it as a big deal, so didn’t waste time and money on the issue. Also many of the suggestions for deterring your cat centered around what we consider “scare therapy” so we weren’t going to even indulge those.
He trained us quickly to acclimate to his world and the best solution….lots of cleaning supplies on hand and a good scrub down before/after meal time! Win-Win.
Is that pizza fur me?!
We fur-mly believe he still would have jumped up there no matter what we did, because he’s that kind of cat! Plus, who knows what they get up to when you’re not there to catsit 🙂
Are YOUR cats allowed on the kitchen counters? What methods have you tried to deter them?
I have had many cats in my life-never allowed them on counters or tables. It never was a real problem-just pushed them off, with a firm NO. Sometimes it would take until the kitty was over a year old to take effect, but always did. Cats rescued at later ages- never had a problem-just told them about house rules- a couple of NO’s and all good. They are allowed in other places- windows, couches, chairs with blankets. Just not on any food surfaces or my antique furniture!
“Allowed” on the counters isn’t exactly the right word. I’ve learned to never leave anything foodish or interesting on the counter. My tortie, as you’d expect, has learned only one thing from my efforts to forbid her the counters: to jump down when she hears me coming! I agree that I can’t do anything harsh to deter her. She’s a good girl, uses the scratching post way more than the furniture, so I’m content.
Very true! Do we “allow” anything really or do they train us to accept it? =)
In my previous house I didn’t want them on the counters mostly because they would always want to wander onto the gas stove and for their safety I wanted to discourage this – I would just take them off there when I saw them and never left anything they’d be interested in on the counters and that seemed to work – they didn’t appear interested in getting up there. Now I’m in a condo, and I don’t believe in punishing them, or scaring them, so they love to be on the counter so I just do a good cleaning before and after eating, food prep etc. As I have a dog I even feed one of them on the counter so she can eat in peace and not get harassed by the dog wanting her food!
We have one of those flat surface stoves, so we can’t allow the cats on the counters. When we got it, we had also just adopted (after fostering him, his mama, and his 5 siblings) a kitten. So we had to train all 3 adult cats and the kitten to stay off the counters. It didn’t cost us anything but time.
We moved a counter-height cat tree into the kitchen. We also allowed them to sit on the trash can. This way, they did not miss a single moment of the action. If they got on the counter, we simply said a gentle “Not the counter, dear.” and moved them to the cat tree or trash can top, whichever they usually preferred. We always gave them a treat when they were on the tree/trash can, whether it was by their own initiative or us placing them there.
We also put out kitty drinking fountains for 3 rooms in our house. We had the other 2, and they worked fine, we just didn’t really need them when the cats had access to the sink. Adding the fountains really helped.
After just 6 weeks, we had no more issue with cats on counters. Although now that our youngest is all grown up, he chooses to watch my daughter prepare his food from the comfort of her shoulders, which is just fine by her.
I have truly enjoyed reading all your articles in 2019 on cole and marmalade. Be sure to keep it up in 2020 please . i especially liked the one where the black cat had to be rescued from the top of the tree