discouraging cat from worktops?

[bundaberg]

any smart ideas? my cat has taken to jumping up onto the kitchen worktops whenever my back is turned. he NEVER does it when I am in the room because he knows he shouldn't

unfortunately our kitchen doesn't have a door either, so it isn't as simple as shutting him out.

we're keeping the worktops as clear as possible, so it isn't that he is regularly finding food or anything up there either. and he gets fed plenty! plus catches wildlife to supplement his diet. nice.

is there anything i can do???

How good is your hearing? You need to persuade him of your omniscience - when he disappears from sight and you hear the faintest sound of a jump (or they'll often meow first just to check you're not there) then yell 'OI' and clap your hands hard.

If he's already more or less surface trained, that should be enough to get him down.

(Don't worry if you make the odd mistake - as long as it's not every time, he won't be keeping score.)

luckily he has a bell, which is what alerted me earlier today! more jingling than usual

but won't he just do it at night? or when i'm upstairs? bad kitty!

or do you think it'll work as long as i catch him the majority of the time?

'Persuade' is the operative word here. I reckon the majority of the time should be enough, particularly as he starts to feel bad because he thinks you're omni-present. Worth a try anyway.

(You're pretty well defeated at night though, I think. My boys have always gone to sleep through the night, the Siamese with me, so I knew they weren't behaving badly. If your boy roams the house in the early hours, he'll know you're flat out. All you can do, really, is clear the surfaces before bed and hope that the load of guilt will combine with that to make it not a worthwhile experience.)

We kept shouting at ours to get down. She did, but when we were asleep she jumped back up there and pissed on the tea towel that was folded on the work surface. I could imagine her saying "Fuck you, bitch," as she waggled her furry arse over it.

i rather suspect that's the kind of thing mine will do!

he also knows he isn't allowed on the beds, and yet will still sneak up there any chance he gets.

Beds are different. I know that 'kitchen surfaces' have some factor that extends the No Step rule to some other surfaces - but not beds. I don't know why.

I've always reckoned that the trick is to enforce the house rules rigidly - but not to have too many of them. We have 3 and I think that's enough for the boys to cope with. Which they do with diligence. The rest of the time it's give and take on everyone's part, including the humans.

I have given up with mine. My Cats jump on to kitchen surfaces all the time! Dettox wipes are my friend. They sleep on the beds, whenever they fancy. They won, I lost

our rules really are just no beds, and (now) no tables/work surfaces.

he has lovely squishy cat beds, sofas, beanbags lol, all sorts!
I actually wouldn't mind him being on the beds in theory only he kept kneading DS2's face in the middle of the night (with claws) which was leading to much distress!

No kitchen surfaces - which they extend for some cat brain reason not to do with me.

No scratching unauthorized surfaces.

No biting in bed.

That's it.

ooh yes, no scratching too. that's not going so well right now either lol

It sounds like he loves ds2 if he was milk paddling on him.

Dog beds make better cat beds than cat beds do, higher sides & more padding in the base.

Tin foil strips on the border of the counters may discourage jumping up. Some cats don't like the sound or texture. It worked well for us.

Will give the tin foil a go.
Last night I made a barrier of small appliances and boxes all round the worktop lol

It's not a question of being a 'cruel mommy', Raspberry. And I bet they won't think that. It's just house rules. The humans here aren't allowed to do certain things and neither are the cats - and they just accept it.

More willpower!

Our kitten used to jump all over us when we were eating at the start until we introduced the water spray, having less success with keeping her off the dining table or beds though!!

In my experience, part of the trick is to say NO and exert yourself as soon as they have the bad thought. I suspect that for cats, the thought and the deed are much the same thing so you need to get in before they even do it - as soon as you see them sitting beneath something and sniffing or getting that concentrated look on their face or shimmying to jump. Once they've actually done it, any corrective action has lost part of its impact.

gave up years ago trying to keep felines off the worktops just religously clean them with anitbac spray in between and before doing food prep and my lot dont go near the beds cos i keep the bedroom doors shut at all times

you could try this

I gave up a long time ago on trying to keep them off work surfaces (although come to think about it I'm not sure I ever really tried). And the worktops seem to be popular vantage points (see my photos for evidence:) ).

I'm even quite lazy laid back when it comes to disinfecting. As long as it doesn't look too muddy or hairy I don't really care. It's never done me any harm.

In fact I now encourage them to eat their dried food from the breakfast bar. The theory is that if they're too fat to jump up to the worktop then they can't have dried food (as apparently on demand dried food is linked to obesity). At the moment I only have one who is too fat to manage it, and he hasn't lost any weight yet, but I've only been doing it for a couple of weeks.

Bet he's either managing it when your back is turned or blackmailing a chum to bring some down for him!

Mine are constantly on the work surfaces, but I never prepare food directly on it, always give it a wipe and then use a chopping board etc.