Preventing Counter-surf: A Worthy Battle Or A Lost Cause?

[PMousse]

My 6-month-old sweet girl has been with me for 3 weeks now. From Day 1 I've been training her to be off the counter but to no avail. I cover the counter with aluminum foil--in two days she decided she doesn't mind walking on it. So I added double-sided tape taped to some cardboards--she tolerates them fine and even licks or picks with her mouth the tapes that have flared up. Now I also added baking sheets--she does avoid them but I don't have enough of them to cover the entire kitchen counter. I do have to confess that not every inch of space is covered, and as an agile animal she can walk the narrowest ledges.

When I am at home and whenever she does it in front me, I clap my hands, say "No. Get down!" and walk towards her. She knows she's doing something I don't allow and jumps down before I get too close, only to get back up there some time later. It's quite tiring for me to repeat this 7/8 times every day.

I don't have food out on the counter, but she knows that's where food gets prepared as she sees it when I work in the kitchen or wash the dishes. And as a super curious cat she wants to sit on the counter to watch the steam rising up from my pan.

So my question is - is it worth it to fight this battle? I can't prevent her from counter-surf whenever I'm not around, but should I also not bother when she does it in front of me?

If I continue with the current practice (of disciplining her), I'm afraid she'll not like me as much. There have been a couple of times last week where, after being made to get off the counter several times, she went away and stayed by herself for quite a while instead of crawling into my lap for cuddles.

But if I don't discipline her, I'm afraid she'll hurt herself. My electric stove sits flush on the counter, and when the electricity is turned off, the only way to know it's still hot is a red light indicator, but my cat won't know about the red light. Or should I just trust that she naturally knows about potential dangers and won't hurt herself?

 

[ArtNJ]

My reasoning used to be keeping things sanitary, but even a generally well trained cat will go where it wants when you are not looking or not home, so the reality is that tables & countertops are never gonna be sanitary if you have a cat unless you clean them before every meal. Because cats are smart enough that you are only training them not to do stuff when you are looking. And when you are cooking, you obviously have to take basic precautions as well, because even a generally trained cat that smells certain foods (chicken for example) is going to go for it if you look away (well many cats will). So I just don't think there is a ton of logic to the fight, unless it bugs you because it bugs you -- which is really a perfectly acceptable reason in my book. Some people on here get bent out of shape about using water as a training aid, but a spray bottle works very well for some cats. And for some it doesn't work at all, but I never seen evidence of damaging a bond as some claim, as long as you only use it in limited spots. Whether it is worth it or not is only something you can answer, because I just don't think the objective reasons for fussing about it hold up that well. We have tried, but our 2 1/2 year old just won't learn, (unlike many cats we have had in the past) and at this point my wife just shoos him away when she notices, because she thinks it is "gross" to have him up there, but we are no longer making any serious effort at training -- he has beaten us in this regard.

Anyway, that is my take on it.

 

[Ardina]

I have been extremely fortunate that neither of my cats, as much as they enjoy being high up, showed any interest in jumping on the counters. Part of that may have been the way I set things up - I gave them high up places around the kitchen that they were allowed to be on so they could supervise during dinner time, and kept the countertops and dining table off limits. The important thing is to make sure it's difficult to go from an allowed high place to a not allowed high place. For example, there's a tall chair next to the sink area that my cats are allowed to sit on. But I've placed the dish rack next to the sink so there's no easy way to jump from the chair onto the sink/counter. Similarly, they're allowed on the windowsills, but I placed lots of stuff on the edge of the nearby table, so they can't jump from the windowsill onto the table. Maybe something similar will work for you?

 

[susanm9006]

If you are consistent you can keep her off the counters at least while you are looking. It is worth it in my opinion because as much as I love cats I don’t want their butts on surfaces where I am preparing food, I do not want fur in my food and I do not want non cat owner guests to be horrified by cats sitting near food I am going to serve them.

I have resorted to using a squirt gun on a cat who refused to stay off the counter. You can give them a squirt from a distance so they don’t see it coming and the startle factor helps deter them.

 

[danteshuman]

I trained my boys when they were young with squirt bottles & penny cans. Now at 10 & 11 they don't even look at the counters or dining room table. So for me it was worth it. I did allow them on the breakfast nook though. I also trained our semi feral to quit counter surfing with a loud no, clapping & putting him on the ground if he doesn't move fast enough. To each their own. However what ever you let your cat do, he/she will do for 15-20 years.

 

[Minxrat]

Poppy has worked out that she can get safely to one counter. Luckily I don't prepare food on it now. She gets up whilst I'm putting her food in a dish so she ends up eating there . As soon as she's bored and gets down, I clean it with antiseptic spray. She finds it tricky to get to the cooker, which is fortunate, as she has to bypass the sink and she feels unsafe going around it. Also luckily, she doesn't shed. She's part Maine Coon, I think, and doesn't lose hair, which is brilliant!

 

[orange&white]

I agree with folks who say you're most likely only training her not to be on the counter when you're at home. I had one cat who always wanted to be in my face, including in the kitchen. He was also a climber, and liked to go from the counter to the refrigerator to the top of the drop cabinets. Instead of trying to train him, I put him in the bedroom before I started cooking and he didn't get let out until the burners had cooled down. That worked well enough to suit me (and him).

 

[EmmiTemmi]

I'm really hoping to use some of these suggestions to keep my two 7mo boys off the counter. Mostly because I don't want them possibly getting hurt on the hot stove (One boy jumped and grabbed the edge of a hot pan and nearly pulled it down to the floor with him), or by pulling out the very sharp knives from my knife block, or licking leftover food off my plates before I wash them at night (no dishwasher here, sadly).

The only way I've found that works right now is lining the counters with used soda cans (washed out and dried), and stacking them 2 cans high, spreading them out evenly spaced. If a boy jumps up at them they crash and tumble and scare away the cat. But it's SUPER ugly and a pain to work around. And since I can't line the cans around the sink area, I fill the sink with water so if a cat jumps up they get a little wet and jump right back down. Again, it's such a pain to work around, so I'll probably try some of the suggestions found here. Thanks all!

 

[maggiedemi]

You could try using a small bicycle type horn or a whistle. I also have this toy pig that oinks when you squeeze it. It's actually a dog toy that I bought for the cats to play with, but they hate the noise it makes. So if I use that, they'll get down quick.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

It may be a lost battle, but I agree with some of the other posters here, that you can at least try to keep them off while you are home or while you are looking directly at them doing the counter-surfing.

I happen to have a kitchen that has a door, so we just close off our kitchen when we are not home. I understand that many people have more open floor plans in their homes, and this may not be an option for you.

Rather than a squirt bottle, I've personally just consistently picked my cat up and set her on the floor any time she has gotten on the counter. Do this over and over, and they will get the idea. They eventually just walk away, as they are tired of being put on the floor!

Another thing I might recommend is to keep something on the counter(s) that the cats do not like to smell... like a bunch of bananas strategically place right at the usual point where they jump up to the counter, or a little glass jar with holes poked in the lid that is filled with a menthol substance (most cats don't like these types of smells). I think smell is a much better deterrent than using "touch deterrents", like aluminum foil or sticky tape. A cat's sense of smell is many times stronger than ours. I would just add the caveat that if you are using an item that smells and might also be toxic to a cat, that you put the item within a sturdy (yet ventilated) jar or metal mesh container so that they cannot get at it and ingest it (that is, should they even approach it close enough to want to nibble on it! there are, I hear, SOME cats that are attracted to substances that most cats might find stink-worthy).

 

[basscat]

PMousse
When it comes to your food, cat hair, fiber....same thing.

 

[orange&white]

Rather than a squirt bottle, I've personally just consistently picked my cat up and set her on the floor any time she has gotten on the counter. Do this over and over, and they will get the idea. They eventually just walk away, as they are tired of being put on the floor!

That's work with most of my cats, until the one acrobatic cat. As long as I'm not prepping food or cooking, having them on the counter never bothered me much though.

 

[ManekiNekko]

Reading all these replies was really interesting.

I am a germaphobe so I tried for a long time to keep our cats off the counters in our old house. The only thing that worked was a full on soda can line ALL the way around the edge of the shortest counter. And that only worked until one got knocked over and left a space open for them to take advantage of. In our current house, the counters are lower and I would have to line each and every one of them to keep the cats off. I finally gave up. I am just very careful about keeping them away when the stove or oven is on (for their sake) and making sure our food never touches the counters and is always on a plate or some such (for our sake).

On the plus side, this misbehavior came in really handy after I had back surgery and couldn't bend over for 6 weeks. They'd just hop up on the counter to be fed.

 

[pipperoo]

I recommend a book called The Trainable Cat - its not about teaching cats tricks, but more a lot of useful, relevant info to understand your cat and what motivates them. The authors have ways to make your cat calmer in a car, at the vet, come when called, stay off the counters etc.

 

[PMousse]

Thanks all for your replies. It's always so interesting to see how and what other cat moms and dads have come up with in dealing with this issue. Since my original post my Ashton has walked all over my current last line of defense--the baking sheets--and I've left her be.

If I wasn't gonna let her up the counter, I should provide a more attractive alternative, but the way my kitchen is laid out, there's no other high flat space near the kitchen that she can go and observe the actions. I'm already having to wipe the countertop before cooking anyways.

I've sometimes put her in another room when I cook/eat. That has worked well.

 

[Emily Orson]

When I got my shelter cats they were obesessed with the kitchen counter food prep area and human food. I quickly put a stop to this for the most part by using their sense of smell as PushPurrCatPaws also does: When I am prepping food, I have something at hand that cats find nasty - like chopped up green pepper, coffee grains, onions, garlic etc, and let them smell it on the floor in my hand as they are naturally curious about what I'm doing. Then they realise they are not missing out on anything delicious
Also- when I've prepped meat/dairy etc, I spray the counter and anything that may smell nice to them with a solution of lemon and vinegar, which is a natural cleanser as well as mild anti-bacterial and the kitties detest the smell.
When I am making a really nice, tasty dinner which requires a lot of work, and us humans want to enjoy it, I actually do have to put them in another part of the house with their own meal so get some peace and quiet!