keeping the cat off the refridgerator

So I got home from work on Tuesday and the first thing I see is my wide open freezer!! Of course everything was melted and defrosted so I'm sure it was open all day I'm also absolutely sure that it was mischief Milo who did it. His newest skill is being able to jump from the counter to the top of the fridge and he's quite proud of it. I'm pretty sure that when he jumped off he kicked the door with his feet and opened it. Some trick, huh? Pixie is way too coordinated to do something like that, lol.
I know there's tricks to keep a cat off of certain spots but for the life of me I can't think of any! Any tips? Thanks!

double sided tape...or tape with the sticky side up..

I agree with the tape thing, and, you could also try putting something on top of the fridge so that the cat won't have anything to land on.

If a cat can see that they have no "landing room", they won't jump up onto something. Or, they'll hightail-it back down as soon as they see they will NOT FIT on the place they're trying to jump!

I have a stack of cookbooks, a clock, and a vase with dried flowers up on top of my fridge. All very pretty and such. Only ONE of my 6 gets up on top of the fridge and he doesn't do it often. He jumped up there recently and knocked the clock off, and it scared him out of his wits. He hasn't been up since!

If you use the tape trick, and use single side sticky, wrap the edges under and make sure it is securely taped to the fridge. I made the mistake long ago of just laying it flat - it got wrapped around my cat's legs and it was a monster to remove.

You could use bubble wrap or balloons also. I line the top of my fridge with decorative baskets along the edges - its another barrier that they see and don't think they can get thru.

They are quite proud of themselves when they make that height milestone, eh? LOL

I have two Bengal/Siamese mixes that luuvvv to climb - the higher, the better. We tried the tape thing on top of an expensive china cabinet that we did not want scratched and wouldn't you know it, the cats LIKED the tape. Now we can't get them to leave tape alone. Any of the kids art work taped to the fridge, posters taped to walls, notes taped to the cabinets, you name it and it's fair game now.

Go with the item blockade and make sure the items are relatively heavy and definitely not breakable.

a few layers of Tin Foil maybe? I used a box to keep my boys from jumping from the chair to the china cabinet to get my birds.. and it worked for a little bit.. before they pulled the box down and one of the others went after the bird. tsk tsk tsk

I just had another thought about the fridge (triggered by the suggestion of using tinfoil): I had a very clumsy feral girl many years ago that loved bread. I used to keep the bread on top of the fridge sitting on a placemat. One day while I was at work she apparently tried to jump on top of the fridge, hit the placemat, which slid off with her on top of it. On her fall down, she hit a counter and dislocated her jaw. I came home from work to find the bread and placemat on the floor and the poor cat with a broken jaw. That was an emergency vet visit.

I guess my point is - don't use something that is slippery in any way. If they don't land right and it slides off, the cat can be hurt.

I am searching for answers to a similar problem but mine is with the benches. My husband wants to do the double sided tape when we go to bed but what happens if he pulls it off and happens to swallow it? should that be something I should be concerned about?

Nano kept wanting to jump up onto the top of the kitchen cabinets -- which is 7.5 feet up in the air, that small 6 inch space between the ceiling and the dusty top surface. She'd get up there, stroll back and forth, enjoying the view for an hour or so before carefully repelling down the side of the cabinet to get back to the floor.

Anyway, I was fine with letting her do it but it was a very challenging jump. I saw her miss it three times, which resulted in falls that looked like a complete wipeout. The last one she hit the little stove lamp that sticks out, then bounced off the side of the regular kitchen counter and then landed with a thud on the floor. Cats don't always land on their feet, that's for sure. Nano got up with an arched back, methodically did her stretchy-walk over to the cat bed, and slowly settled herself into the soft padding. She let out a single exasperated meow to indicate she was okay but extremely embarrassed. A day or two of soreness and she was back to normal.

But anyway, in good conscious I couldn't allow her to keep trying that jump, so I bought dozens of rolls of paper towels from Target and stuck them up in the space between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling. Now she has nowhere to land, and although she has eyed the jump a few times, she hasn't tried it since.

So I am a fan of "putting stuff there and not letting them have room to land" to stop a cat from jumping on something.

Originally Posted by Nano

So I am a fan of "putting stuff there and not letting them have room to land" to stop a cat from jumping on something.

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Amen to that! That is why I use decorative baskets. I also have them on the cabinet over the washer/dryer as mine did the same thing as yours - jumped up into a small crevass and sometimes missed the leap.

Originally Posted by milopixie

So I got home from work on Tuesday and the first thing I see is my wide open freezer!! Of course everything was melted and defrosted so I'm sure it was open all day

I'm also absolutely sure that it was mischief Milo who did it. His newest skill is being able to jump from the counter to the top of the fridge and he's quite proud of it. I'm pretty sure that when he jumped off he kicked the door with his feet and opened it. Some trick, huh?

Pixie is way too coordinated to do something like that, lol.
I know there's tricks to keep a cat off of certain spots but for the life of me I can't think of any! Any tips? Thanks!

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Some cats can open fridges or freezers, so you might experience it again, even if you can stop him from jumping on top. My sister has to keep a big belt (which she got from a moving company) around her fridge to stop one of her cats from opening it. He jumps up on the counter and pries it open from the side. We got a new freezer a few months ago, and Jamie learned that he could open it by the handle. The company sent somebody out to install a "child-proof" handle, and that has done the trick.

Originally Posted by Momofmany

Amen to that! That is why I use decorative baskets. I also have them on the cabinet over the washer/dryer as mine did the same thing as yours - jumped up into a small crevass and sometimes missed the leap.

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Yes, actually there is another table that is off-limits to Nano. I filled it up with picture frames, a trophy and some artwork when I was cat-proofing my place.

And I just re-read my post -- the paper towels are still in their rolls. That wasn't exactly clear. It looks like I am just storing a bunch of extra rolls of paper towels so it isn't exactly picturesque but its not too much of an eyesore.

Some of the little sticky velcro pads on the freezer door might solve the problem and allow the cat to go where it wants to. Good luck.

Leonard

Originally Posted by huggles

I am searching for answers to a similar problem but mine is with the benches. My husband wants to do the double sided tape when we go to bed but what happens if he pulls it off and happens to swallow it? should that be something I should be concerned about?

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I don't think he would swallow it, but I know that I have a couple cardboard boxes with some tape on them, and Serena will rip off as much as she can, carry it to her special place, and rip it apart. In the morning, I'll sometimes find pieces of tape everywhere, carpet, couch, you name it. It's like a little scavenger hunt! but, I don't think, unless he will eat nearly anything, that you have to worry about him eating any tape!