Food thieves

[Doobigetta]

I just read on another thread that someone can safely leave food lying around and their cat will show no interest in it. How the hell do you achieve this? I adopted my lovely old boy from the street, and never, ever managed to train him out of laying claim to everything edible in the vicinity. He always had to be shut out of the room when we ate, because otherwise he'd jump on our laps/the table and try and intercept food literally between plate and mouth. I always put this down to his humble beginnings and assumed it was just too ingrained in him that he didn't know where the next meal was coming from.
Now I have a new kitten, and she's exactly the same! Madam, however, cannot plead a childhood of poverty- she came from a breeder to us and has never had to lift a paw to get anything.
Please tell me your secrets if you've successfully trained cats out of this....

Repeated firm 'no' with no giving in worked for us.

Alternatively, my friend's cat responded to receiving a blueberry or raspberry when she begged for food - it was clearly futile!

We have trained one of sibling rescue kittens out of jumping on the table at mealtimes, by gently putting them on the floor. Three strikes and they get shut in the kitchen. BrotherCat has learnt, but SisterCat takes no notice whatsoever and gets on the table regularly, although she will get down at the firm voice! We don't know if it's because she is less intelligent or just doesn't care! We suspect the latter!

However, leave food lying around.....The butter dish has to be put away, the food waste bin emptied of meat products, the bread bin firmly shut immediately; and the kitchen door shut at night! They will eat and drink anything! Leave cat pouches or cat milk cartons in a cardboard box in the kitchen, and they chew their way through the packaging until they can get the contents!

Our previous cat never bothered in her whole life, to try to open a pouch! She ate her meals, and any meat leftovers we gave her, but that was it! We could leave anything else lying around!

We can't leave meat, fish or cheese lying around and if you turn your back on a plate that still has gravy on it then it might get licked, other than that they aren't bothered. They can rip open a pack of Dreamies though.

Mine don't beg on tables, but they can open the food cupboard and rip open bags of biscuits or packs of dreamies.

We had to install child locks

I have one cat who is known to help herself to pouches of food but none of them is particularly persistent trying to steal any of our food, other than butter and possibly chicken, when it is on the counter unattended or when we are at the table.

One, however, is very tempted by fish and chips if we eat on the sofa. She starts sitting patiently but as you eat more, and she thinks she might miss out, she gets more and more agitated until she starts trying to swipe it off the plate.

I think it was my furballs you were referring to in your OP. They will very occasionally accept a shred of chicken or lamb from my dinner but that's about it - my DSis was astonished the other day when I offered them a bit of seafood stick & both turned their noses up at it.

I even managed to leave an open bag of Dreamies on the coffee table all night long, and it wasn't touched ! And they both luuurve their Dreamies, enough to fight over them sometimes.

I definitely have very strange and unusual cats!

One cat I caught helping himself to bolognese out of the saucepan as it cooled. I never told my friend who I served it to the next day. He also was caught hunched over a bowl on the coffee table polishing off a sponge pudding and custard I couldn't finish.

Troy was caught licking a defrosting trout.

Both cats never touched anything else left out but my DM's Siamese would lick butter and roll raw eggs onto the floor so he could eat them.

Mine don't touch anything. Dreemies have also been ignored. They don't climb on the units either!

Mine will eat anything. Caught one of them trying to steal a bunch of grapes earlier and the other sits next to you and pulls your fork towards him.