This, pretty much. My cats know very well that I will squirt them if I find them on the dining table, kitchen table, or kitchen counters. This means that they won’t jump up on those tables or counters while I’m in sight. If no human is in sight or hearing, though, the tables and counters are quite likely to have one or more cats on them.
Yes, this does mean that I have to wipe down the tables and counters before I put food on them.
I have areas where their are no-loitering zones, where I would encourage her to move on, though for the most part she doesn’t usually go there.
Do people actually put food on the countertop? :eek:
Our cat walks on the countertop, true. But whenever I prepare food, I do it on a clean plate from the cupboard, or a clean cutting board also from the cupboard.
Only peels, dirty cutlery and china I won’t use again, and packaged ingredients touch the countertop.
So I don’t see why it is unhygenic to have my cat on the countertop.
Free range cat here. I had dogs before I had this cat, so from day one, I fed him on the counter (he gets his own space) so the dogs couldn’t eat his food. Cat food is much higher in protein than dog food, so if dogs eat a lot of cat food, it’ll eventually lead to kidney and/or liver problems.
I totally get the qualms about poopy feetz. But I don’t get how a spray down with bleach solution prior to cooking and eating don’t take care of the problem. If you can’t sanitize with bleach, you can’t sanitize.
Now, there are certain rooms where I don’t allow any pets. Certain doors stay closed so that it’s easier to clean those rooms (dust, sweep, mop, done). The dog isn’t even allowed upstairs unless it’s to get a bath in the shower stall up there. Kitty is not allowed in the spare bedrooms or in my closet. Dog eats stuff that isn’t hers and kitty pees on stuff that isn’t his, so I contain the daily sanitizing to as few rooms as possible.
One of my cats can open cabinets and drawers, so the bathroom doors stay shut or else I’ll find Q-tips all over the house, but other than that they have free rein. Like a lot of other posters, I just give the kitchen counter a good cleaning before I cook. I’d do that even if I didn’t have cats, so it’s not a bother.
Am I the only one who has a door to the kitchen? It keeps the kitties off the countertops .
It’s a sliding door, with louvres (slats).You can see between the slats, and air flows though it…so the kitchen is still an inviting part of the house…not , say, blocked off behind an imposing, solid door.
And the kitchen remains a cat-free zone.
(But only if you slide the door shut within one nanosecond of entering the room.
My kitties are quick 
My first two cats were trained, sort of, to stay off the table and countertops. But really, you had to keep after them all the time, catching them eyeing a jump and saying, “NO!” It got to where they would jump on a forbidden spot, but jump off immediately if they spotted one of us coming.
It just was too much work keeping them off, so finally we just let it go. What the hell, whatever germs the cats are spreading, we probably already have anyway.
No. I don’t like my cat on counters or tables. Especially kitchen counters. She does like to drink water from the bathroom sink, that’s OK with me.
Grandma Bodoni used to make noodles and pasta by measuring flour onto the counter, making a well in the flour, and dropping in the liquid ingredients, then incorporating flour into the liquids. When I make home made bread, I knead the dough on a freshly cleaned countertop…but I rarely make bread. I’ve never seen a bread board or other portable work surface that was big enough to knead bread on.
We have a “no cats on food preparing/eating surfaces” house, too. They got up on the counters sometimes, of course, but not usually right in front of us. We’d just see the evidence in the morning (or through the window as we came home), etc.
My cat Spooky rarely leaves her room, and won’t go in the kitchen unless forced to. Weirdest cat ever. There is nothing stopping her from leaving her room (actually the lowest level of my 6-level house) – there isn’t even a door on it. I’ve never heard of a cat that had no interest in exploring the house.
Our feline overlords have very few restrictions placed on them. The one that bugs them the most is keeping them out of the bathroom when it is in use. Prior to the ban, they would jump in my lap or try to swap at the stream if I was standing. Since I clean their litter box I suppose they were just repaying the favor but it was a pain so I banned them.
This. We should all be doing that regardless of whether or not our feline overlords on the counters or not. Plenty of other Badness in our homes no matter how clean we think they are.
I had a cat like this! I found her abandoned in an apartment building, and apparently she had lived in a studio apartment…when I took her home, she bolted to my bedroom, where she lived for two years. If I left the door open, she’d peer calmly down the hall, but wouldn’t leave her “home.”
I have a cat now who lives in the bathroom and my daughter’s bedroom, but she’s afraid of the other cats so that makes some sort of sense, anyway.