So a person that I am involved with has a cat that she allows to have complete run of the house. It climbs up and sits on the couch, the chairs, the bed, the dinner table, on top of the TV,- you name it. I’m not comfortable with this for one very simple reason-
Cats don’t wipe their butts.
I once posed a question to her that if I never wiped my butt, would she let me sit on her couch naked. She said of course she would not, but I don’t think she understood my analogy. This is exactly what her cat is doing. If her couch was white, I bet you could see evidence of the ‘skid marks’ from her cat scooting its unwiped butt back and forth along the upholstery.
So who do you think is being unreasonable here? Would you let your pets sit on your furniture??
Anyone who’s a clean freak would probably not choose to own such a pet. Not only do they sit on furniture, they also lick you, vomit on the floor, etc.
I allow the cat on the furniture that we sit on. Spud knows he can’t go on the kitchen chairs when we eat. He is absolutely forbidden to go on any tables or counters and knows it.
The dog- all 90 pounds of him- has the run of the house. He gets on couches, chairs, beds, ect. No counter tops though-- his vertical leap is only good for about 3 feet. Does the dog wipe? Not that I’m aware of, but that would be a good trick. Does it bother me? Nope. But then, I’ve never really gotten into the whole antibacterial-hand-lotion-using germophobe thing.
Our dogs aren’t allowed on furniture or in any of the bedrooms. It has nothing to do with their butts, tho. It has to do with them being animals. They have the run of the living room, dining room, office, kitchen, and laundry room. They have their own afghans to sleep on. They have a yard with access to the basement. They don’t need to be in our bedrooms or bathrooms and they don’t need to be on the furniture. They can keep their doggy selves on the carpet or the vinyl floor.
I don’t have half the problems with their butts as I have with their muddy feet.
I have two cats and a retarded dog. I hate my dog and we don’t let her in the house, as she had a worm in her head and tends to think she has to poo everywhere thats new. My cats on the other hand are cool. When we let them in the house, they are free to run around as they are pretty well trained. They can sleep on the couches if they want (and they do). They also know they can sleep on the corner of the bed if and only if there is a towel there for them to lay on. They are remarkably smart and will just stare longingly at the bed until we put something down on it for them to lie down on. They learned because my mom would throw them off it there wasn’t one. It’s not an issue of dirty butts though, we just don’t want the sheets getting covered in cat fur. They know however, not to even think about jumping on the tables. Cat feet on tables is icky. My brother lets his cat in his house jump on the counters/table, and my mom hates that.
Ditto. The couch is fine. No cats allowed on the table, dinner chairs, or kitchen counters. The bed is okay, but we keep the pillows covered up so that they don’t sit their butts on the pillows.
The cats also have “the jungle gym” – a multi-level scratching post that is their own dedicated furniture.
BTW Surreal, cats do clean their butts, but that’s TMI…
I have two dogs and they are part of the family. I don’t think anyone who cannot include a pet in their home as part of their life has any business having pets. That said, yes, my dogs are allowed on the bed. My Chow sleeps at my feet every night.
ratatoskK is right about the licking, vomiting, etc. It’s just part of the package.
We have four cats, and the only place that is absolutely, unequivocally verboten is the kitchen counters. They know that, and we never have a problem. They are not allowed on the table when we’re eating, but any other time is fine. I wipe the table surface often enough anyway.
Like Charmian, our cats also have a large jungle gym. They also have a little platform attached to the sill on the living room window so they can lay and look out, and they spend a lot of time on the dresser in the bedroom looking out that window. They don’t really care for the bed except once in a great while. The rest of the time, they are either on the floor, on the futon, or in one of the recliners. Rusty’s preferred position, of course, is on my lap when I’m in the recliner.
Then again, some people could never handle it at my house, because I will let the cats eat off my spoon or my plate. We’re very comfortable with our cats, or we will be until we die of toxoplasmosis, anyway.
My dog can get on the couches or beds. Heck, I frequently find her sleeping on my side of the bed with her head on my pillow. She never tries to pop on coutners, tables, etc because she was trained to not do that.
I don’t let my cat on the couch. He’s got his own recliner, what’s he need my couch for? He’ll still sit in the recliner even if you sit down first. Or second for that matter.
I don’t have any complaints, though, he’s earned his chair and his spot on the bed. First, he’s got a cleaner butt than I do. Second, my cat is the cut-above-cat. Sits, lies down, goes out to the yard to do his duty, and somehow manages to guard the yard from every living creature.
I’m not sure how he manages to catch the dragonflies, though.
I let my cat on the sofa with me. She can lay on the love seat too as long as she stays on her blanket. She isn’t allowed on the kitchen counters or tables and she is smart enough to stay off the bed when my SO is home.
I am not worried about her butt. She is always licking it. It is probably cleaner then 95% of people’s butts. (Sorry if that is TMI!) I don’t like to get hair on my counters or to have her in my food though.
Ditto on most responses. Cherokee, Theodore, and Happycat are permitted on any furniture I would sit on. They are not permitted on tables or countertops, and it didn’t take long to disabuse them of their desire to get up on those surfaces. Cats don’t like being hit with newspapers or splashed with water.
Our four kitties have the run of the house except outside kitty, (nicknamed “The Sprayer”)who can only go in the laundry room. Everything is fair game…countertops, tub, toilet, furniture, and under the blankets…with us…naked. No one has croaked so far, so it must not be too germy.
We have two cats - Patches and Babyface (hey, I didn’t name them) or, as I refer to them, Regular Kitty and Psycho Kitty. Since being declawed (DON’T EVEN START), they are allowed to go wherever they like except our bedroom. They usually sit on the floor, but will sit on the back of the couch. Occasionally, they’ll perch atop one of the bookcases or entertainment center.
Shan-cat is allowed on the couch, the loveseat and one kitchen chair. I believe that he was not allowed on the furniture in his last home, because it took me about a month to get him to jump up on the sofa and nearly a year to get him to sit on the kitchen chair (seriously, I had my first success with that this week). Technically, he could sit on any of the kitchen chairs, but he only sits on the one next to me, and only when I’m at the kitchen table. He’s not allowed on the coffee table, kitchen table or counters, and he’s never tried to get on them either.
He has the run of the kitchen, living room, dining room, hallway and one bathroom; he’s not allowed in the bedrooms. He’s allowed on the balcony, but only occasionally and only under supervision, because I worry that he’d fall.
