How do you keep your cats OFF the kitchen surfaces?

[iamnowawhaticallmother]

I have two cats who used to be very well behaved but since growing larger have decided to brazenly stroll up and down the kitchen surfaces - which drives me potty. I have no idea how to remedy this. We can't keep the door shut because of the way the house is designed.

So my question generally is how do you make your cats stay off things you need them to? (I can't use those sprays you get in pet stores in the kitchen) - I'm very allergic to sprays and things.

There is no food on them by the way.

I clap my hands and say down. She seems to have got the message.

Very difficult. We tried all sorts. Best solution was spreading kitchen foil over thye work surface-they hate it - but a niusance to kepp having to do it.

I have tried that Iwillorderthefood (love the name) and they get off them - but they do it repeatedly and they must LIVE on them at night as there is cat hair in clumps in the corners. It DRIVES ME MAD. Is there any way of instilling it in them for longer than a min?

oooh - kitchen foil? Good idea.

IME, you can't!
If you don't see them doing it, it's because they're doing it when you're not looking ;)

My cat knows she isn't allowed up (she's always trying to get up to drink out of the tap, despite fresh water in bowl, and untouched fountain!)
She goes up anyway-gives herself away as she makes a little cat grunt as she jumps-then I come in and she jumps back down looking guilty.

Sometimes when I come home, I'll see her through the kitchen window, jumping back down.

Little buggers.

They hate being sprayed with water. If you can sneakily do it so they do not see you spraying it, it works better.

We've managed to train our cats to not jump on the surfaces by clapping or sending the kids after them However, we do have a mysterious set of muddy prints that appears on the worktops every night. Hmmm!

We just live with it and I make sure I wipe the surfaces down before food preparation which I suppose is a good habit to be in anyway.

Tight discipline when they're young. (Exclusion from The Presence for a period of time for offences.) Usually takes them a day or two to learn not to offend - but then I have Siamese and they train beautifully.

Anything on the floor is fair game though. You can train them away from important areas easily enough but you can't make their entire lives a mass of rules. 'OI ! ' usually works well enough if you've forgotten something and left it lying but they probably won't remember well enough not to do it again.

you can't. we've been trying for 4 years. we tell them to get down and squirt with water and they do get down for about 5 mins until our backs are turned

It wouldn't even occur to me to try. I even feed some of them on the work surfaces to give them a chance to eat without being pushed out of the way by the very fat ones (who are too fat to jump up - so there's a thought - you could make them all very fat :) ). If I want to use a work top I just wipe it first (or just brush the hairs off - I'm quite relaxed with that sort of thing and it seems to do me no harm).

I clap my hands or tell her to get down when I am about, but never bothered with much more. She still does it when we are out though. We just give the surfaces a good clean before food prep.

I don't, I just wipe the surfaces down ALOT. They will get down if I say 'get down' but I can't keep my eye on them all of the time and they are all locked in there overnight.

I don't - I just wipe the surfaces every time before I use them.

I'll confess that I don't like it thecatneuterer . It's not primarily an issue of hygiene (given how close I am to my cats, I really can't get too worried about that) it's a matter of safety. Kitchens are potentially quite dangerous areas and I don't like the thought of cats jumping up - and sending glass, china or hot something skidding and falling, interfering with cords to appliances, or (horrors) going on to a hot hob and ending up with melted paws.

In fact, I'll often send the cats out of the kitchen if I'm doing a big or complicated cook (so that they don't get underfoot) but at least I know they're not going to jump up and disturb something I'm doing on a surface.

Yes I do worry about the hob cozie, particularly as one of them seems to like sitting on there. So I always leave a pan covering any hot part until it's completely cooled down, just in case. Cats seems perfectly capable of negotiating glasses, plates etc though, just as they do in other parts of the house.

Mind you I've never done anything that could be regarded as 'complicated cooking', so that's not going to be an issue with me.

Mine don't. They also avoid coming in the kitchen when I am cooking as they have had various foodstuffs poured on their heads as a result of getting underfoot.

You can't . The best you can do is train them to stay off the worktops when you are there. Then you can pretend to yourself that they have learned to stay off :)

Well there's the interesting thing, thecatneuterer. Once they're trained to avoid kitchen surfaces, they also seem to avoid other surfaces in the main house eg they don't go on tables, sideboards etc. (Although I've never worked out what the common factor is in their minds.) I've not trained them to that - they just seem to do it automatically.

Well that is interesting cozie. I've never had any success at training any cat to do anything. They are quite good at training me though :)

I've just had the urge to upload some photos of cats on my work surfaces to my profile page. I really should take more photos though - sometimes you can barely see work surface for the amount of cats on there. And some have even learned to jump up further to the top of the wall units, where I've put a couple of blankets for them.

I use a grapefruit scented kitchen cleaner (made by method, I buy it from homebase)

They don't seem to like the smell

Goodness, I feel the urge to say 'OI!' even from here!

Great pics.

I've been trying to work out what the criteria are for training them. It's not just the Siamese (although they do seem to be so easy) because the non-Siamese also seem to mind their manners as well.

I'll have to mull it over.

Ha ha cozie. Even if they could hear you they'd be totally bemused. They think it's their kitchen and they just allow me to use bits of it occasionally.

I think you can train cats and they do know where they shouldn't go. The issue is more whether they are tinkers enough to keep disobeying!
I luckily can shut my kitchen door.
They also know climbing the shelves is banned. One of them will climb them in front of me. I sternly say no and she pauses and looks at me waiting to see what I'll do. If I move as if to get up she promptly runs off, if not she keeps climbing!

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I gave up, he completely forgot himself when we moved and decided that a new house equals new rules, plus he can see the patch where the rats live from the kitchen window so that settled it.

I use e-cloths to wipe up now which is cheaper than constantly spraying multi surface cleaner everywhere.

It is easier with subsequent cats if you have well trained older cats. My bad cat seems to have grown up knowing there are some rules she must never transgress.