HELP ! Keeping Kitten off Table and counters for health reasons

Can someone PLEASE HELP ! My husband and I are at our wits end with our 7 month old kitten. We have been trying the advice of every cat owner we know on houw to keep our kitten off our dinner table and counter tops. We have the sweetest Kitty in the world. She is very social and LOVING but we just can not get her to stay off the table or kitchen counters. I know this does not bother alot of cat owners as we go to serveral peoples homes that have cats that do not seem to mind this behavior but we do! Our kitten is welcome to ANYWHERE else in our house but these two places. There is something about the kitty digging in it's feces and urine in the litter box or sitting on our toliet and then walking on the places we eat and prepare our food that seems highly unsanitary to us. We have tried yelling at our cat every time she does this, we have tried squirting her with water, we have tried sticky tape and tin foil on the table, we have tried shoving her off the table, we have tried picking her up and giving her a firm NO, we have tried rewarding her when she listens and gets off the table and NOTHING has helped. The minute we walk out of the room, our kitten is either walking on it again or decides to lay and nap there. Is there anything else we can do. We have 4 children that love our kitten but we also want them to have a clean eating enviorment.

Thank you !

The first thing i would do is never leave something interesting for the cat on the table or counters. Then I would try several tricks, most of them can be found around in this forum, some of them:

* Put aluminium paper on the surfaces you dont want the cat to go (they dont like steping on it
* Put some objects in equilibrium on the sides of the surfaces so as they will fall when the cat tries to jump. this should scare her. The drawback is that you can hurt your cat and that after the object falls it does not go back to its position, so the cat just has the way open
* try that training thing they sell that spary citrus when they detect something around (i think its the best but it costs and you need some)


What i wouldnt do is shout to the cat...to me it has never worked, the cat simply dislikes you...

Originally Posted by ruthiepa

We have tried yelling at our cat every time she does this, we have tried squirting her with water, we have tried shoving her off the table, !

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Please don't do either of these Hopefully someone will be able to give some advise because i'm one of those people who lets their cats go anywhere, but always spray the surfaces down with an antibacterial spray before preparing food.

With most cats, you will never win this battle. Your only sure-fire alternative is to keep the kitten out of the dining room and the kitchen. Maybe that's not possible in your case.
Even if you get to the point where the kitten won't jump on the counters in your presence, you can rest assured she will get up there when you aren't around to scold her.

If you can tolerate it, you might try some reverse physcology. Take the mystery and fun out of being up on the counters, by allowing her to be up there long enough to get bored with the whole thing. Some cats like cause and effect scenarios. She gets on the counter...you guys react...she gets attention and some sort of kick out of it.

Your best bet is to take Rosiemac's advice. Know or assume your cat has been on the counters and take measures to dis-infect the counters prior to use for food prep.

Good luck!

Rosiemac... I do not want you to get the impression that I am mean to my daughters kitty. Sometimes it seems people expect you to treat your animals better than your children. It is my children that come before any animal in my life :-) I sometimes have to yell at my children just as I tried ( PAST TENSE ) to yell at the kitten to get it to listen. It OBVIOUSLY did not work. Nor did the water spraying but I certainly do not feel I was being mean or abusive to the kitty. I have never hit my children or the kitten. Sometimes me raising my voice does deter my children from touching harmful things. I wish I had the luxury of spraying every time the kitty put her bacteria filled feet on my table or counters but since she does this about 50 times a day, I just do not have the time. I have 5 children and they are constantly at the table or counters and I can not have the germs in their eating area. I understand many people do let their animals everywhwere in their house. My sister in law has 4 cats and they are always all over her kitchen. I would never think of eating or drinking a drop of anything at her house nor would I ever let my children have a morsel of food or drink from her home. I am just not one of those people who buy into the saying that cats or dogs have the cleanest mouths or are sanitary. I do not want to eat off of anything that has pet hair in it, or anything that just got done eating it's do-do or playing in it and then sniffing or licking or walking on something my family is about to put in their mouth. YUK !
There is also a safety issue with my daughters kitty. I have one of those flat surface electric stoves. Yesterday I was cooking bacon and the kitty was on the stove! This type of electric surface takes a lot of time to cool down. I will try anything to try to keep the kitty from getting burnt.

I just do not want anyone to think I would ever be mean to the kitty.
BTW, Kitty has had her name changed by my 7 year old so many times I no longer bother calling her sparkle, angel, fluffy, dotty, precious or the serveral other names, to me she is just the sweet " kitty ".

I can not put tape on the stove and have tried tin foil but it did not work :-(
Thanks for any idea's

I have had luck with 2 things. One is when I find them on the table or counter, I just gently lift them and put them on the ground. The second thing I had success for is a product called SSSCat. It has a motion detector hooked up to an aerosol spray can. When the detector senses something, it gives off a tone and a air spray. It isn't the cheapest thing out there and sometimes isn't as reliable as I would like, but it goes off enough to keep them off the counter. It also tends to catch my husband moving around in the kitchen too. (He never remembers to turn it off when he goes in there).

There are several reasons to NOT spray your kitty with water or shove your kitty off the table.
1) Spraying water can hurt her eyes. Cats do not learn by punishment.
2) Shoving her off the table may seem ok because "cats always land on their feet," but that is not always true. Cats and kittens can land wrong and be hurt this way.

It is clear that you love her and would never want to hurt her.

Have you tried the can trick? Place a few pebbles in a coffee can and cover. When she is doing something you want to change, shake the can. Distraction can be very effective.

Oliver only gets on the counter once in awhile. When he does I hiss at him and he jumps down. Its kind of funny because he makes a little "hmmph" sound, like he's talking back.

I imagine with 5 children it is hard to keep the house germ free with or without cats. Sanitizer should be a staple in your house. Maybe another kitten is the answer. Your kitty needs a playmate. Maybe he keeps jumping on high surfaces to get away from the children? He will stop after he matures a little. My cats learn when I remove them and say no no no at the same time. Eventually they learn the no no no to get down, or don't go through the door or whatever it is they are going to do. the key is patience and consisitancy. good luck

Don't feel like you need to justify why you want kitty to stay off the table. If you don't feel its ok, keep working to teach her so.

At my house, it is the kids who leave food out on the table, so our kitty wants to jump up and eat it. I don't worry too much about the germs, because they kitty is in the kids beds...I figure they are already sharing germs. I just personally don't like pets on the table or cupboards...and don't like them jumping up to snitch food from the kids during meals! (Yes...Garfield used to do that!)

First, as your kitty gets older, she will calm down, and be less likely to be all over everything.

Second...no food left out or on the table at any time! And no table scraps to kitty...otherwise you are encouraging her to beg or jump on the table. If the kids want to give scraps, they are set aside for kitty to get later.

Third...keep working with your kitty. Yelling didn't help with mine, they just stare at me pitifully, as if to say, "It must be awful to be such a loud emotional creature, tsk tsk." Before I learned squirt guns aren't good...I would squirt him, and he would clean himself...no idea it meant I was unhappy with his behavior. Finally, I learned that a firm, "Garfield, NO!" was best, with my hand held up to his face. Not a threatening gesture, as if I would hit him, but letting him know I was unhappy with him.

If you ever watch how kitties eat together...the most aggressive kitty gets the food first, and the others stay nearby waiting for their turn. So to your kitty, she is behaving like a good kitty. In time, she will understand, and get on the cupboards less and less.

Also, after taking her off the table or cupboard, have one of the kids play with her somewhere else. Maybe in your house, the kitchen is the center of family life, and she is just trying to be in the center. If kitty play happens in the front room or kids bedroom...that encourages her to play elsewhere.

And kitties love to be up high. If you can place a high shelf in the kitchen, preferably near a window, she will prefer that to the table. Or put a kitty tower in another room for her, so she can be up high elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Beckiboo

Don't feel like you need to justify why you want kitty to stay off the table. If you don't feel its ok, keep working to teach her so.

At my house, it is the kids who leave food out on the table, so our kitty wants to jump up and eat it. I don't worry too much about the germs, because they kitty is in the kids beds...I figure they are already sharing germs. I just personally don't like pets on the table or cupboards...and don't like them jumping up to snitch food from the kids during meals! (Yes...Garfield used to do that!)

First, as your kitty gets older, she will calm down, and be less likely to be all over everything.

Second...no food left out or on the table at any time! And no table scraps to kitty...otherwise you are encouraging her to beg or jump on the table. If the kids want to give scraps, they are set aside for kitty to get later.

Third...keep working with your kitty. Yelling didn't help with mine, they just stare at me pitifully, as if to say, "It must be awful to be such a loud emotional creature, tsk tsk." Before I learned squirt guns aren't good...I would squirt him, and he would clean himself...no idea it meant I was unhappy with his behavior. Finally, I learned that a firm, "Garfield, NO!" was best, with my hand held up to his face. Not a threatening gesture, as if I would hit him, but letting him know I was unhappy with him.

If you ever watch how kitties eat together...the most aggressive kitty gets the food first, and the others stay nearby waiting for their turn. So to your kitty, she is behaving like a good kitty. In time, she will understand, and get on the cupboards less and less.

Also, after taking her off the table or cupboard, have one of the kids play with her somewhere else. Maybe in your house, the kitchen is the center of family life, and she is just trying to be in the center. If kitty play happens in the front room or kids bedroom...that encourages her to play elsewhere.

And kitties love to be up high. If you can place a high shelf in the kitchen, preferably near a window, she will prefer that to the table. Or put a kitty tower in another room for her, so she can be up high elsewhere.

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Pretty good advice.

I definitely agree with Becky's advice about kitties being up high. That is probably a big part of the issue - she likes being one of the highest things in the room. Try to find an alternate place - or make an alternate place - that is as high or higher than the table/counters. Make it kitty friendly and let her know that she is allowed there.

Another thing to try is citrus. Most kitties do not like citrus scents and will avoid it. Try cleaning with an orange or lemon cleaner, leave orange or lemon rinds around the area, or orange or lemon air fresheners. That doesn't work for every kitty, but it does work for some.

The thing with training a cat is that negative reinforcement simply doesn't make sense to them. All yelling or squirting will do is teach kitty that you are scary and do things to her that she doesn't like. You pretty much have to convince the cat that she didn't really want to be there in the first place. Or that there is something else (or somewhere else, in this case) that she would rather do.

Only two of my four go on the counters, and it's usually when food is being dished up for them! They hang out long enough to get the first bite, and then down they go w/ the food. They aren't encouraged to go up though- and Rocky once had a accident w/ the stove, but only his hair was singed thank goodness! Personally, when I cook and I'm working with food, it's on a clean cutting board that kitty hasn't walked on. I feel that life is too short to worry that much, and my kitties have all been de-wormed etc, and I feel they are probably cleaner that then average joes' hands!

I have to preface this by stating that these are NOT WHAT I RECOMMEND.

This is something my ex-husband used to do and I hated it: he used to place set mousetraps upside down on the counters underneath opened newspapers to scare the one cat of four who would jump up.

I do not recommend this.

He also used to yell and flick them on the nose and throw them and spray water at them and all the negative things mentioned here and then some that aren't mentioned here.

SHEESH!!! No wonder my poor Sabina was so stressed out!!!

What has worked for me is not even something that has worked 100% of the time but it is in line with what has been mentioned here. (Oh, and citrus didn't work for me because Keef likes oranges, lemons and limes - go figure - I have to have an oddball kitty)

I started off acting like it was no big deal at all and then Sofia totally lost interest. Then Keef started getting older and bolder and more curious. I did the same thing. It worked for a bit. She likes to sit on top of the closed lid of the stainless steel trash can next to the counter - she can still see what I'm doing and doesn't need to get up close.

Then the other night, I looked up and saw Keef trying to get on top of the fridge. I said her name, she turned and looked at me while still standing full length reaching for the top of the fridge and she chirped at me - it was her rebuttal to my request that she please not go up there. Every time I said something, she chirped right back. After a few moments, I made a downward motion with my hand and said in a firm tone I rarely use "Keef DOWN" and after chirping her disagreement with me over that, she got down, walked over to me and laid down at my feet.

While I was sleeping, she got up on top of the fridge.

You win some and you lose some - but that's why they've got antibacterial soaps and sprays and wipes, right?

Besides, Sofia and Keef are toilet trained so their paws don't actually touch their waste. I just have to flush for them...no opposable thumbs you know.




Good luck - and whatever you do, do NOT go for the rubber band guns as feline training tools, those rubber bands really sting!!! Someone I used to work with did that and I was absolutely shocked and appalled and I really hope that he was joking when he said that's what he used them for!!!

How nice everyone is :-) Thank you all for some very good advice :-) I am going to try the shaking can tip and the citrus and the others mentioned in your posts. I suppose I am used to children and not pets. After about ten times of telling my children to not do something, they finally get it. I was not expecting to have a pet and for it to totally ignore me LOL Funny thing is, the first week we had her I was bragging to everyone about how smart our kitty is because when she would get on something I did not want her to, I would simply say " get down" and she would :-) Then after about two weeks she seemed to be playing alittle game with me and hops on the counters and table every second of the day and would never get down not matter what unless I picked her up and put her down.
I have lots of those HIGH landings in my kitchen and dinning area for kitty to climb up to and she does, she just prefers the table and counters.
I think the hardest thing to get used to is being busy and walking my little ones food over to them and cutting it at the table and then I go back around the islands to get someone elses plate filled in the kitchen and find the kitty eating out of our pots and pans ...EWWW Then I have to throw that away. If I have to run to another room for a second while making dinner, of lunch or breakfast, to check on one of the kids of get something I have to have another person to stand guard over the food in the kitchen until I get back because I KNOW kitty will get it if I do not.

I am pretty sure Kitty is getting all the play time and attention she could from humans, maybe she needs some other animal friends ?? She has many places to hide to get away from the kids if they bother her. She is allowed in my room but my kids are not

I am taking her to get fixed next week and the vet recomends I have her front claws taked out. Does anyone have an opinion on that ? The vet says that she will stop destroying all out new furniture and that it is a good idea since she is an indoor only kitten ?????????????????

Thanks again everyone

The vast majority of members here are anti declaw, but we have this link for everyone to read before they decide to go ahead with it.

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41954

As Susan has just said, most people here are anti declaw. If you are worried about your furniture, you could try buying something like soft paws to put over your kitten's paws instead. Welcome to the forum by the way

My kittens enjoy eating oranges...pears too!

My Senior cat Ox is almost 17 and I bet I find him on the kitchen table at least once/day. I think the main reason is we have a bow window in the dining area that gets alot of sun. However it is full of plants and not much room for a cat to fit in. He doesn't jump on when there is food I think he is capturing the sun. However at his age when he sees me walk into the room he jumps off right away-no talking necessary. He and another cat will jump in the kitchen counter-mainly trolling for leftovers-even though I've caught Bobs chewing on a package of meat I was unthawing. My solutions. I have a breadbox that I use constantly. If I am unthawing any meat I stick it in the microwave. Their noses are pretty good and and hopefully am blocking the smells. Is there a window that you could get a cat perch installed. I agree with the others that some cats like heights. Also everytime you yell at the cat or if she is on the table instead of negative reinforcement-she is thinking this is playtime/a game and wants to keep on doing it. There is a book for you to buy-Outwitting Cats by Wendy Christensen. It talks generally about cats-a big chapter on the disadvantages of declawing and others on what to do doing when you cat is doing "bad" things.
Do this cat have plenty of toys to keep her occupied??
Good luck!!

Originally Posted by ruthiepa

I think the hardest thing to get used to is being busy and walking my little ones food over to them and cutting it at the table and then I go back around the islands to get someone elses plate filled in the kitchen and find the kitty eating out of our pots and pans ...EWWW Then I have to throw that away. If I have to run to another room for a second while making dinner, of lunch or breakfast, to check on one of the kids of get something I have to have another person to stand guard over the food in the kitchen until I get back because I KNOW kitty will get it if I do not.

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No offense, but as a Mom of 4 myself...I would encourage you to stop waiting on your kids. Either the food is served up at the table, and passed, or the kids line up with their plates to be filled. Unless your kids are extremely young, they should be doing more for themselves. (Trust me...my Mom instinct tells me to still spoon out the 17 y/o's meals, but I stop myself every time.) My youngest is 6, and by encouraging everyone to do what they can for themselves, you foster that very important independence. He even cuts most of his foods up on his own. Or an older sibling can help a younger sibling.

My cats have had pasts of snitching food, too. If my hubby is getting home late, I have to put everything into the microwave or oven to protect it for him!

If your kitty is too monstrous at meal times, because she keeps succeeding at getting into the food, just shut her in a bedroom at mealtimes for the next two days. Then start letting her out, but if she jumps up, tell her "get down". If she doesn't, place her back into the bedroom.

Just remember, cats are so different than dogs. Dogs aim to please, and you can hurt their feelings by saying, "Bad dog!" Cats are much more independent, but still quite social. So the bedroom is a time-out more than a punishment...just letting them know you do NOT want them up on the cupboards and table! Cats are also very smart, so within a few days of being extra firm, she will most likely know what you want. Then it is just a matter of hoping she does what you want....

Also, remember that the benefit to your kids of having a pet far outweighs the extra effort in training her. And even this training time is good for the kids, teaching them how to work with an animal, and try to see things from her perspective. How to enforce rules without being harsh or cruel. They learn things from an animal they could never learn without a pet!