Why won't he let us eat meals in peace?

[LavenderHills]

This cat is a beautiful, curious, energetic sweetheart. We love him, but we're losing our minds over his disruptiveness at mealtimes. He (mostly) doesn't try to get food from us while we're eating, but it's as if he is very cranky that we're focussing on food instead of him! Every tome we sit down to eat, he walks around yelling indignantly and doing deliberately naughty things. We have an open plan kitchen/living area and he does things like jump up on the countertops etc.

Does anyone have ideas about how we can make him stop?

Get Pet Corrector from Amazon. It’s a can that makes a high pitched noise. Every time he does this, use it. It works! I shout ‘no’ loudly at my two. They do learn after a while what no means. Or make a loud hissing sound, they hate that too.

Thanks @Buggedandconfused I will give that a go!

We have a spray bottle filled with water that we spray at him when he gets on the counter. It makes him get down very quickly, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to act as a deterrent. Maybe the noise will work better.

Ours just joins us for meals now, sits up between us and waits for her little scraps of meat or fish. Terrible habit, mustn't pander to them

Good luck. Mine sit in front of me waiting for me to do the right thing. Cheddar will try and swipe off my plate if she gets a chance!

It’s marketed for dogs but works well with cats too. I’ve trained mine with it.

My cats do this too.

Look at his gorgeous little face though 😻

Mine have issues about leaving me in peace to eat. Girlcat sits by my feet and STARES, Boycat walks along the back of the sofa & hovers by my shoulders.

Thing is, there's very little human food that either of them will touch (though Boycat is developing a taste for some things). I have offered it to them, they sniff at it then go back to staring or hovering. On the plus side, I can leave a plate with leftovers on the side overnight in easy reach & they don't touch it.

My DP now mainly eat vegetarian food and the look we get from Haribo when I tell him it's not meat is funny. It's a disgusted look and he walks off.

He used to jump up constantly but we could lock him out of the kitchen. He still jumps up on the worktops and it's infuriating. I caught him licking a butternut squash the other day. He loves being squirted with water so that is no longer effective.

He jumped up on the hob when I was cooking the other day and the silly sod singed his fur.

He's 9 months old now and hope he grows out of it.

my first cat just used to like to join in, he'd sit on a kitchen stool and supervise, or on a table mat if we were at the table.

current cats are not bothered unless it's a big Sunday Roast with visitors and then they ( most idiotcat, his sister has much nicer manners) sit in the window sill and poke the visitors for tasty morsels....which for idiotcat is a nice bit of green veg. he is very stupid and missed a good deal of reading in the "How To Cat Handbook"....mostly about being a carnivore and not liking the rain.

I love the OP's cat's dramatic pose on the sofa.

Toddler - are you sure they aren't plotting something more sinister than snatching morsels of your tea?

Is it really such a problem? One day their gone and you realise they weren’t being naughty.

Don’t feed him from your plate, ever.

Get a treat dispensing ball and let him knock it around the floor, concentrating on getting the treats out. He’ll be too busy to notice you’re enjoying your food.

Is there another room you could shut him in at mealtimes?

Mine get a treat titbit when we eat at night. It's now habit that they run to the cupboard when dinner is served. Except the old boy, he's trained us to serve him before we sit down. Banging cutlery on plates is my fail safe method to get them all in at night.

Our lad is a greedy and cheeky so and so. He isn't generally too bad when we're eating but last weekend DP had got himself some more meat and roast potatoes; he went to put tray back, cheeky cat popped up and grabbed a roast spud in his mouth. DD and I found it hilarious.