Cats on the counter and other "safe" topics

[Traveler]

Cats, food and kitchen counters

Many years ago I was building a redwood deck for a friend and because it was about lunch time I hopped over to the deli and got 1/2 lb of fresh Jewish style corned beef and a loaf of black rye bread. When I returned I put everything on the kitchen counter and then went back out to the deck for just a few seconds. When I came back in, the plastic bag containing the corned beef was missing.
Well, I immediately knew that "Knucklehead" (yes that was his name) the cat had stolen it and had run off to enjoy his feast. Luckily, I got to Knucklehead before he got the bag opened. He was not a bit happy with me for taking it away. He looked at me as if to say, "Hey, I found it. It's mine. Get your own".

 

[Ruth n Jersey]

I think cats just love high places and cabinets as well. Usually we let them do what they wanted to do and it wasn't long until they lost interest in the counter tops. These are photos of our first cat. She loved the top of the cabinets in the kitchen so she could see all that was going on, the birds aren't real but I think she thought they were.

 

[SeaBreeze]

Funny, just happened today. My cat doesn't generally steal food, but we pretty much don't leave tempting things out unless we're in the kitchen. Today my husband was steaming some raw shrimp (easy peel/shell on), and he had shut the pot off and put it to the side on the counter to let it cool before peeling them and chilling them for shrimp salad.

I had some yard work to do outside, and I asked him if the shrimp would be okay sitting there in the kitchen, with the cat.....because my cat does love shrimp. He said don't worry about it, they'll be fine, they're too hot for him to eat and they still had the shells on.

In around 20 minutes, he started talking to me through the front screen door. Said he heard a ruckus in the kitchen and when he went to see what was going on, the dog was chewing on something and looking guilty. He opened the dog's mouth to find just the tiniest piece of tail left of the shrimp. The cat must have pulled one out of the steamer pot and dropped it on the floor.

The dog is really not food driven and we haven't had any issues with him taking things off the table or counters and eating them. The weird thing to me was also that the cat dominates the dog, the dog is young and pretty much backs off if the cat even looks at him crooked. Anyway, no harm done, we did have a laugh about it....our little kitty is becoming a Garfield.

 

[SeaBreeze]

I'm a cat whisperer. To stop the kitty from contaminating your vittles. Spray him with a water from a small bottle. Keep it handy, preferably on the counter. It shouldn't take long to cure him of this unfortunate disease.

I used a spray bottle of water on medium spray when my cat was a kitten, kept it by the front door and gave him a squirt when he wanted to run out, worked very well.

 

[Catlady]

That's adorable, Aunt Bea. My daughter knows a woman who trained her cat to sit on a stool and eat from a plate on the table, like a human. And they say cats are untrainable. It just takes a lot of patience. Cats don't like to be told what to do.

 

[jujube]

A sheet of aluminum foil on the counter (or anywhere you don't want the cat to walk) works wonders with some cats. They hate the feel and sound of the foil and will avoid it like the plague. Another thing I've read to do is to place a few pieces of tape, sticky side up, on the counter. When the cat walks on the counter, he gets the tape on his paws. Generally, he won't take that chance more than a couple times.

And then theres:

 

[NancyNGA]

I have very little counter space in the kitchen. A good thing for this purpose...

An abandoned cat took up in the barn, and I decided one day to make her an indoor cat. She was used to jumping to the rafters there and I knew she would be a problem, especially at night when I was sleeping. I put a penny in a bunch of empty soda cans, and before going to bed I would line them up along the counter edge. Same with the table. It only took about 3 nights, one more for good measure. Wake up in the middle of the night hearing multiple soda cans hit the floor, smile, go back to sleep, pick them up in the morning. No signs of it happening again, but I guess I could have been fooled.

I love most all cats, but can't take the thought of finding cat hairs in food. The hairs float around in the air as it is. My cat has pretty much run of the whole house otherwise. I figure that's enough.

 

[Meanderer]

 

[AprilSun]

A sheet of aluminum foil on the counter (or anywhere you don't want the cat to walk) works wonders with some cats. They hate the feel and sound of the foil and will avoid it like the plague.

The foil works. For a long time, we had a problem with our cat jumping and laying on the back of our couch which is fabric. I found on-line where someone had stated that putting foil on anything that you don't want your cat on would work so I tried it. She jumped up there and tried to lay just a few times until she stopped. She hasn't done it since and that has been years ago.