Counters - just accept that they like them?

[kghia]

Hi again!

While I'm here (first day and brand new, already got some great suggestions/advice for my other thread!) I want to talk about my cat Rosie, who seems to love high places (like all cats) but doesn't get the idea that she is not allowed on table and counter tops.

When they were kittens it didn't seem like they had any fascination with the counters...they have a tall cat tree (almost past my chin, and I'm 5'7"), lots of toys, each other (they're best friends) and lot of cushy, comfy places to nap on. Then all of a sudden they both developed a fascination for the kitchen counters, which drives me INSANE.

I've learned not to leave any food on the counters (besides bananas, which they seem to  hate the smell of) because I've had a couple of sourdough bread incidents that led to some very unpleasant...ahem...toilet incidents... so it really is just one of those things that tick me off.

I've tried everything and nothing seem to work. Packing tape is great, but it gets everywhere and is so unsightly. Also, It'll deter Rosie THAT ONE TIME, and she'll seem to forget about it for a little while, but will try that surface again weeks or months later. I've resorted to using the SSSCAT spray for my two critical areas - dinner table and the length of counter where I cook and prepare my food.

She has a bad habit of hopping on the counter where we put our home phone. It's also where we temporarily place documents and hubby will leave his keys/coins/headphones there and some days we come home/go downstairs to find things all over the floor (Rosie has gotten into it). The other favourite place of hers is the eating bar--we have a cable box on there which is nice and warm, and we try to keep it guarded with a piece of lint roller paper (so it sticks to her when she tries to sit on it) but she seems to love to keep trying, and I often find little white cat hairs all over the eating bar.

Unfortunately, I can't keep my counters lined with packing tape/lint roller paper...it's wasteful and we keep getting things stuck to it. But I've tried spraying the counter with vinegar, leaving citrus out, using a piece of cardboard and lining it with double sided tape (but they LOVE walking all over it), tin foil... it seems to deter Rosie once but she'll go back to it if there's no SSSCAT spray to remind her. We've also tried the water bottle but she knows it's us spraying her so it no longer works when we're not around. Whenever we catch her on bad places, we give her a time out in the bathroom.

Sammie seems to get the point from when she was disciplined as a kitten, and we haven't caught her on the counters/tabletops for awhile.

One time hubby went downstairs to the kitchen and found Rosie napping on our cushy, dish drying mat. She looked up at him as if to say, "Oh hello, fancy seeing you here!" and didn't run away until hubby got out the spray bottle.

Should I just accept that Rosie is just a cat and that a cat shall do what a cat wants??

 

[haze n blaze]

I need help with this too. Haze will hover and cry while I prepare his food. It gets crazy. My other one patiently waits on the floor.

 

[shellyk]

If I only had just the one cat, I would train her not to get on my counters.  We have three cats and three dogs.  We have resigned ourselves that the cats need to be on the counters.  They use the counters to traverse the house above the dogs.  Only one of the cats will go on the same level with the dogs.  The other two are afraid of the dogs.  The height of the kitchen counters gives them a little distance/height from the dogs.  Cat and dog hair is a condiment in our house. 

 

[dave_l]

When Slasher and Ripper were eight-week-old kittens, Slasher was the pioneer. He immediately began regular patrols of every surface in the house, trying to open cabinet doors, drawers, etc., and explore everything. Ripper was timid, and initially only poked his head over the counter to see what was going on; it took him a while to summon the courage to climb up there himself.

Maybe if I had consistently removed them from the counters and said "NO!" every time they climbed on them, it might have worked, But after almost seven years, I'm sure it's far to late to change their behavior.

Those plastic mats with the plastic "spikes" are pretty effective, but I only use them in a couple of places where the cats could damage stuff.

 

[kghia]

I think my Rosie is just stubborn. She won't do it when I'm around (or when she thinks I'm around), and she doesn't seem to have any other reason for wanting to be on the counter other than 1) to sit on the warm cable box or 2) to take a leisurely stroll 3) to knock things off the counter. It doesn't seem food-related, she is not the piglet of the two cats (she is not nearly as eager as the other to be fed).

I've tried the spikey mats (among all the others I've tried) and it works when it's there, but she'll keep trying until one day she succeeds when there's nothing hindering her. I wish the cat would learn to just avoid it altogether.

 

[jcat]

We compromise - the counter where I prepare food and cook is off limits (at least when one of us is around to chase Mogli off it; we do find paw prints on it), while he's allowed to use the other counter whenever he wants. It was the same for our last cat.

 

[duckdodgers]

I've given up with my cat. I tried every single thing imaginable to train my cat to stay off of the counter. Nothing has worked. You name it, I've tried it. I can't leave food out on the counter or she'll eat it. Even if she doesn't view it as a food source she'll tear open bags that look like they may have something tasty and knock it on the floor. I've just learned to adjust my life. If I need to have something out of the fridge to defrost or something I leave it in the microwave. Any food items go in the pantry. I double check before leaving the house to make sure I picked everything up. I lock the cat in the bathroom while I'm cooking so she's not in the way. If I'm having dinner guests over I put her in my bedroom for the evening. She's a sweet cat and people like interacting with her, butt having her trying to interact with their supper isn't appealing.

 

[Winchester]

We have six and they were all counter-surfers. I've gotten into the habit where, before I start any kind of food prep whatsoever, first I clean the kitchen counters. I don't allow them on the counters when we're at home (and neither does Rick), but we both work and cats do what cats do. We have learned to put food in the microwave for storage, for thawing, etc. If I want to soften butter overnight, it goes into the microwave. If I want to thaw a chicken breast, I put it in the microwave for a couple of hours, then I put it in the fridge to finish thawing. All food is always put away promptly. You will never find food on our counters.

I knew the cats surfed the counters, but didn't realize how bad it was until we got a stove with a black glass top. I came home from work and saw the pawprints on the black top. 

 I'm not amused by it, but cats will do what cats will do.

 

[2bcat]

It's been several years now (lucky me) because I had a older cat, since passed, and now two 5-year-olds who are small and I guess really can't jump quite that high and otherwise show not that much interest.  One of them puts her paws up on the cabinet when I prep the food, but that's it.

Before that though, the old cat could jump up on counters, open cabinets, open bi-fold closet doors(!), all sorts of annoying things.  I basically had to give up.  I was gone at work during the day and couldn't really train the cat not to jump up, so instead she trained me not to leave anything on the counter that I didn't want pawed at, knocked off or rubbed against. ;-)  Or eaten I suppose, though most of the time that was a non-issue for me as I wasn't prone to leaving uneaten food up there too often.  I'll never forget the one time when she was very young that I found her curled up in a colander in the sink!  It was annoying but also too cute.  She also used to get up on top of the fridge, in multiple different homes.  THAT I was able to fix just by strategically placing things on the edge of the fridge that blocked her ability to jump there.  In one home due to the specific design and height she could open the UPPER cabinets so I had to put child locks on those as well!

Still, in the end it was fine.  In my current house before she was unable to jump up anymore, jumping on one particular counter was often even part of her greeting routine when I got home.  I let it be.

It is more difficult in some homes than others to not have things out on the counter.  Right now, I can't imagine having to do that, don't remember how I ever did it.  We must have just had less stuff back then and gradually increased the stuff on counter once she stopped jumping up.  I guess it's a nice bonus that our "new" (it's been over a year now) pair doesn't jump up, because I don't know where we would be able to put away some of the stuff.  I'm sure we could manage if we had to, but some homes are even smaller than ours.

One thing I've observed is that it doesn't seem to matter how many other nice places a cat has available, be it with sleeping spots or comfy high places or whatever.  They still want to check out different spots and will choose a variety of places at least to some degree.  If a cat can reach a counter it will likely get up there.  I would guess it is possible, sort of, to get the cat mostly into a no-counter routine, if you are home a lot and keep at it.  But many will test it and test it.  My cabinet-opening cat would still test them years later.  Short of having a door to block them out of a kitchen, there's always going to be the possibility they will get up when you are not home.