Yes, cats are allowed on counters. In fact, since I got a puppy, I’ve had to feed them on the counter. I also use bleach spray to disinfect.
My mom had a strict no-counters policy when I was a kid. They learned to stay off the counters unless she wasn’t looking. For me, I figured it was hopeless and let them do what they want in my house.
Huh. Our cats never TRIED to get on the kitchen counters…either of them. One did jump up onto the dining room table once, but knocked something loud off and scared himself, so he never did it again.
I dunno, maybe we just have lazy cats.
[QUOTE=Mara;7924968]
No dogs on the carpet??? 
I get not letting them on the furniture - our two are not allowed on one particular sofa - but they’d be confined to the kitchen, bathrooms, and one hallway if we never allowed them on carpeted surfaces.[/QUOTE]
Our house is all hardwood except the upstairs which is just bedrooms and an office, so essentially the dog isn’t allowed upstairs. I don’t need a dog who just spent all day outside in the barn/swamp/bush to come in and walk across the carpet or jump on the furniture/beds. And honestly most people who I know that let their animals on everything have houses that stink, but they’re so used to it they don’t notice.
[QUOTE=RS;7924835]
Somewhat of a spinoff of the dog-foot-in-the-cheese-dip thread…
Do you allow your cat(s) on your kitchen counters?
My mother never bothered to keep them off, saying it was a wasted effort. Carrying this wisdom into adulthood, I actually feed our cat on the counter – we have a large L-shaped counter, with the sink taking up part of the short end, and the cat’s dishes occupy the corner by the sink. Keeps it away from the 100+lb dog, and half the time I’m plucking the cat out of the frying pan of bacon anyway, so I figured why fight it.
Recently I house-sat for a friend that was out of town over thanksgiving. She specifically mentioned that, while the cat would scream at the porch door, he was not to come inside, as he was “the kind of cat to jump on the kitchen counters when you’re not looking.” And therefore was strictly an outdoor cat.
Ummm. IS there a type of cat that DOESNT jump on the kitchen counters when given the opportunity? Or am I the disgusting one who gave up a long time ago, and allows my cat to roam the kitchen at will?[/QUOTE]
Do you know where your cat’s feet have been? If not, why would you allow them on surfaces where food is prepared?
G.
Mine don’t get on the counters (one is too fat to jump that high and the other is a kitten) but they DO open the lower cabinets and walk all over the pots and pans.
I have 2 cats and have never been able to get them off of the counters… I even bought two SSScat things and put the at either end but after a few weeks they didn’t care and would either knock them over or just ignore it. I’ve tried spraying them with water too, it bothers them the first few times, and then they will sit there and ignore it.
My parents’ cats aren’t technically allowed on the counter, but they do it anyway because they’re cats.
My cat doesn’t get on the kitchen counters. The only table she’ll get on is my coffee table. She must not be a real cat.
I recently moved back to a home that I had rented out to people with cats. The house is small, 2 bedrooms 2 baths maybe 1400 sq ft. The tenants had 6 cats who were obviously allowed everywhere except outside. There was about 2 inches of cat hair matted into the carpets where the beds had been, a level of kitty litter dust on every surface in the bathroom where the litters boxes were and the grout in the kitchen that had been white, was a medium brown, there was cat hair stuck to the walls. It took 4 large bottles of KABOOM with bleach to clean the small kitchen before I’d cook in it. I am not a neat freak and I am an animal lover. I have 2 horses and 2 dogs. But it will be a while before I think about getting a cat again.
We have friends with cats and they are on the counters and tables. I won’t eat there.
[QUOTE=RS;7924851]
I will say, I do wipe down my counters a lot. With those Clorox wipes. Perhaps that makes it more acceptable…?:winkgrin:[/QUOTE]
The only thing that would make it more acceptable is if the cats would buy the clorox wipes and do the cleaning.
I think you can teach cats that counter tops are off limits. It works best, however, if you start when they are young or new to your house and a little unconfident. Cats learn that negative consequences to being on counter tops have two components-- being on the countertop AND the cops being around to see it. That’s what makes us so vulnerable to their particular brand of crime.
The solution is to find-- or set up-- a situation in which a cat is asking a genuine, self-preservation question about trying out a new, outside-the-boundaries-of-normal-behavior thing. This is a rare window of opportunity for you to do some blitzkrieg on the cat.
If, on the other hand, you have a cat who has already broken the barrier on that illicit behavior of jumping on countertops and now you want to change the rules, you will really have to scare the pants off him. Preferably, with some kind of “action at a distance” thing, like Lucassb’s hidden mouse traps. The cat must learn that the countertop-- not the cops-- is what makes being up there dangerous. And if the cat is already secure up there, the unfortunate truth is that you have to make it appreciably bad for him.
The other way to do this is to be the ubiquitous cop who always, always, always takes the cat down off the counter. For an animal who has to use energy to jump up there, that’s going to become an annoying inconvenience. He’ll stop exerting himself if he loses……over and over and over…. and over.
Our cats were never allowed on the counters or tables. No luck keeping them or the dogs off the furniture, though. Our last cat would sometimes sit in the empty seat at the dinner table and raise his head up like a telescope to survey the dinner offerings. He was polite about it … Just one of the gang. Every once in a while we would catch him on the table and he would act like it was his original intent to just walk across the table to get in the window next to it and not to linger for a nap. Although, in his defense, he would sometimes miss the window when he tried to get his fat little body up from the ground.
[QUOTE=ApolloJakeNWill;7925069]
I have one cat you insists that his water come from a faucet. [/QUOTE]
Side note for you, I have one like this as well. I got a water fountain for them and he is OBSESSED. Something to maybe invest in for you 
Running water all the time for them!
[QUOTE=nhwr;7925275]
I recently moved back to a home that I had rented out to people with cats. The house is small, 2 bedrooms 2 baths maybe 1400 sq ft. The tenants had 6 cats who were obviously allowed everywhere except outside. There was about 2 inches of cat hair matted into the carpets where the beds had been, a level of kitty litter dust on every surface in the bathroom where the litters boxes were and the grout in the kitchen that had been white, was a medium brown, there was cat hair stuck to the walls. It took 4 large bottles of KABOOM with bleach to clean the small kitchen before I’d cook in it. I am not a neat freak and I am an animal lover. I have 2 horses and 2 dogs. But it will be a while before I think about getting a cat again.[/QUOTE]
Okay, I have to say, that is disgusting.
Many of us do not live in filth. I have 6 cats in 600 sq. feet of apartment and it is clean. Maybe I am the exception? I work my ass off to clean up after them- vacuum nearly daily, cat boxes (8 of them, I’d have more if I had room) are in a large storage closet and they get scooped daily. Once a week I pull them all out and clean the floor in there.
The cats do pretty much have the run of the place. My situation isn’t ideal right now, I travel 3ish days a week and they often get left alone, since my boyfriend just took a job in MO and moved. It’s hard. I wish I could have more space for them but I just can’t afford it.
Generally, if you keep a cat’s box clean, they use it. And if they don’t, there’s usually a medical reason. Cats are naturally very clean animals.
It sounds like your human tenants were the problem, not the cats.
I’m a little squicked out by cats on counters and the kitchen table, so ours are not allowed. We’ve got two. They are indoor/outdoor as they please, though they spend more than half their time inside. Every blue moon, one will get up on the counter or the table and all it takes is an ARGGGGG from us and it will scurry away.
There is probably illicit counter/table wandering when we’re not here. I don’t see evidence of this, however. No little cat tracks on the white counter. We have noticed that when we come back from vacation, the cats are more likely to get up where they’re not allowed. Just an ARG or two and they get the message again.
[QUOTE=Kels;7925313]
Okay, I have to say, that is disgusting.
Many of us do not live in filth. I have 6 cats in 600 sq. feet of apartment and it is clean. Maybe I am the exception? I work my ass off to clean up after them- vacuum nearly daily, cat boxes (8 of them, I’d have more if I had room) are in a large storage closet and they get scooped daily. Once a week I pull them all out and clean the floor in there.
The cats do pretty much have the run of the place. My situation isn’t ideal right now, I travel 3ish days a week and they often get left alone, since my boyfriend just took a job in MO and moved. It’s hard. I wish I could have more space for them but I just can’t afford it.
Generally, if you keep a cat’s box clean, they use it. And if they don’t, there’s usually a medical reason. Cats are naturally very clean animals.
It sounds like your human tenants were the problem, not the cats.[/QUOTE]
I think the problem was cats aren’t meant to live like that. The property where this is has acreage. Cats are very useful there. When I have lived there previously we had cats. We needed cats.
But here is the difference. Our cats went outside every morning. And when I say went, I mean it in every sense. We didn’t have litter boxes. The cats came in and out of the house freely all day. At sunset, they were indoors to be protected from predators. I guess most people would have said they were semi feral. But they would never “go” where they slept. I thought they were great pets and they never jumped on the counters.
One thing that puzzles me too-- I don’t prepare food on my countertops. So maybe that is why I don’t care so much. I cook a lot, but if I have food out it is on a cutting board, and I store those in a cabinet, or in a pot/pan/dish, similarly stored away. It would probably gross me out to eat food prepared off any countertops, cat or not. Who wants to eat bleach spray, which I have to use to keep my white Corian pristine? And if my cats were leaving much behind, it would be very obvious as my counters show every little speck of dust.
nhwr, I think you had nasty, filthy tenants who just didn’t clean up after themselves or their cats very well.
Yeh, I let mine go up. One doesn’t really jump, the other one only rarely but my old kitty used to do it. I figure once I’m out of the house they’d be up there anyway and I use plates.
I’d be wiping down the counters before putting food directly on the counter even if I didn’t allow my cats up there.
[QUOTE=Capall;7925386]
nhwr, I think you had nasty, filthy tenants who just didn’t clean up after themselves or their cats very well.[/QUOTE]I agree. But it has certainly put me off having cats in the near future.
My cat stays off the counters and table. The rule in our house is if our bum goes there then the cat can walk, sit and sleep there. We don’t sit on the counters or table top so the cat can’t go there.
Now he does sit at the table in his own chair when we eat and he does have a step stool to sit on in the kitchen when I am cooking or want ever I am doing. I can leave food out and he doesn’t touch it. The most he does is I will be cutting up food in the cutting board (always use a cutting board) and he will reach up with his paw to the edge of the counter if he can’t see what I am doing. If I am baking we pull a chair in so he can sit and watch me. As long as he can see what is going on he is good, but he he can’t he will cay and reach up with his paw.
The dogs where only allowed on the floor and cat food was off limits. They had their beds or crates to sleep in if they where in the house.
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