While we're away from home at work or sleeping....

[Paradox]

Sooo, here lately my cats have been quite rambunctious. To the point that my boyfriend wants to put the cats "in their room" while we are sleeping or at work. I feel like this is only making them more rambunctious since that means they only get to be out for about 6 hours of the day. I play with them with lazers, cat charmers, groom them etc so they are not being ignored or neglected by any means. I just don't know how to get them to stop climbing up on the kitchen table/counters, knocking things over, etc etc.

When we aren't home the cats climb up on the counters and try to eat any remaining food in the sink and it's very frustrating. I just don't think confining them to the spare bedroom when we can't watch them isn't the best option here.

Any suggestions?

 

[pinkdagger]

Ideally, there would be nothing on the counters that piques their curiosity - wash all the dishes before leaving, clear and wipe down the counters (I do this before bed every night too). Make sure they have a designated place that's high up they are allowed to be on - window sills, towers, scratching posts, platforms... If you find they're generally well-behaved when you're around and are knocking stuff over while you're gone, you could try something like double-sided tape on the edges of the counters and tables they frequent, or there are products that spray a puff of air or make noise once they detect a cat's motion on a counter. Some other threads have these suggestions.. since I don't have any experience with it, here are some links to similar situations others have had with their cats on counters and how they resolved it:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/277221/problem-with-cat-on-counters-aggression

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/18608/cats-on-counter

And http://www.thecatsite.com/a/get-off-how-to-discourage-your-cat-from-jumping-on-counters

Do you have any interactive toys? If they don't have anything readily available to play with or are bored with what they do have, they'll go elsewhere to find something new. We leave black licorices lying around because for some reason, our cats love them and will bat and chase them everywhere. We get cheap wand toys and leave them on parts of the cat tower so they dangle, and we hang ribbons and string off of doorknobs or dressers. Foil balls, paper balls, crinkle balls - stuff they can bat around on their own. Our cats love these Sprokets because the texture allows their claws to grab them, and they inadvertently end up throwing it far away so they can chase it down again, and we have something like this ball on a track too where they can just get the ball rolling and get to chasing it without anyone around.

Make sure you can tire them out before bed, like get them panting, especially if they're young and rambunctious. If they stop and lie down, chances are they'll be ready to play again in five or ten minutes. Wear them out completely before you head to bed and they'll kill some of the time you're sleeping by resting instead of getting into things.

 

[Paradox]

Thanks for the fast response!

We do normally keep things clear but I just don't understand how it wasn't until recently that they started climbing on the counter & eating things. It wasn't really until we got a George Foreman grill & noticed that the grease was being eaten out of it that we had began to notice so perhaps this has just been an ongoing problem that we have only now noticed.

They have a very large cat tree with plenty of toys hanging from it. I was just hoping that there would be some sort of solution other than making sure the counters were spotless, as I really don't like the idea of my pets prancing around where I eat & prepare my foods.

My biggest concern here is that I really don't think locking up my cats for all but 6-8 hours of the day is doing any good. Would you consider that to be only adding to the problem since it probably only makes them more rambunctious when they get out of the room? Or is this something that wouldn't be considered as a factor in the behavior?

 

[pinkdagger]

The grease disappearing is kind of gross, haha! Unfortunately it sounds like they've made a habit of it now that they know something tasty will be up there.

I totally agree that if you can avoid it, don't lock them away. If the room is spacious and has lots of stuff they can play with in it, it could work out, but I would personally prefer to let them free roam too. I refuse to let our cats on the counter either, but the couple of times one of them has made the jump up to the counter, he's gotten a loud hissing sound (from us), and if for some reason he still doesn't understand what he's done wrong, we give him a tap on the back heels so he can jump off himself or we pick him up and put him down on the floor.

Is it possible to get some treats they can't resist and place them on their cat tree and such? You could reinforce their need to explore by placing treats, especially smelly ones (I find the Pure Bites treats, especially shrimp or ocean whitefish to be especially smelly and preferred with the cats), in places they're allowed to be in... and then discourage their using the counters with something like tape or foil or something motion detected to scare them off. Maybe even just getting something smelly - in a bad way - and spraying it over the counters, like citrus could make them less interested when they have the option of smelling fishy things where they're more welcome to climb.