The main reason our dogs aren’t allowed on all the same furniture as our cats is because we’ve had most of the cats longer than the dogs and didn’t expect them not to get on the furniture. When mr.stretch started adding the Goldens to our household, he decided he didn’t want them on the upstairs furniture and thus they were trained that way. It’s because three wet Golden Retrievers can soak your couch before you get to the towels. 
This is probably the single reason I’m not crazy about having cats (which I acquired via marriage). I hate knowing that they’re dancing and lolling and licking themselves and rubbing their little asses all over our tables and countertops. Of course, they rarely do this when we’re awake and downstairs (because then they’re made to get down), but the evidence is there: I see little kitty footprints all over the black, glass-top stove, or tufts of fur in the kitchen sink and on the dining room table, and I know what they’ve been up to while we’ve slept. (Every time I get ready to cook, I have to wipe down every damn surface before I get started. Grrrrrr . . . )
We also have (large) dogs, and when I got the first one (back before I married Skip), I was determined that she was not going to sleep in my bed, or hang out on my couch. However, I got her at a time when I was living with my mother (I’d bought a house, but needed to do some painting and ripping up of carpet, etc., before I moved in), and while I was at work, my mother thought it was great fun to teach the puppy how to climb onto the bed with her (I also tried to crate-train, but my mother found it cruel, and so would remove the puppy from the crate after I’d left for work and, if she didn’t feel like watching her, tether her to my bed with a leash . . . but I digress).
So in the end, what the dog (now 7 years old) learned is that she’s not to get onto the furniture *if I’m watching/at home; * but she, like the cats, has a way of leaving tell-tale signs of what she’s been up to in my absence. (And if my mother is sleeping in our guest bed, all bets are off, whether or not I’ m looking.) Every once in awhile, she’ll get ballsy and just hop up onto the bed WITH me to see if she can get away with it. And I confess, sometimes I let her. But she doesn’t sleep there; once she feels like conking out, she’ll return to the floor and find her own bed.
My other dog sometimes gives me plaintive looks when ElderDog is on the bed with me, but since Dog #2 wasn’t subject to my mother’s upbringing, she pretty much just stays on the floor and feels sorry for herself.
So it’s not quite working out the way I intended, but at least the dogs don’t have their big asses on the stove.
I don’t have pets, but if I did, they’d be allowed on the furniture. I just love having them near me. I grew up with a dog in my bed every night. Any pet I’d get would be of the medium-to-smallish variety, though - while I love big dogs, I don’t have the energy to have one of my own. (Currently I don’t have the time or energy for any pet at all, so I don’t have any.)
She was only allowed on some of the furniture, though - my bed, the couch in the TV room, and the couch downstairs. Not the livingroom furniture or any other bed. She knew where she wasn’t allowed. Occasionally my dad would make an exception and ask her to jump up, and she’d give him a confused look, and start to jump and think better of it. Very cute.
Of course, when we’d come home, we’d always see her in the window, her little face peeking out from betwen the curtains… sitting high up on the back of the couch. Or we’d find her little nose marks on the window.
And speaking as a visitor to others’ houses, when I visit a house where the pets aren’t allowed on the furniture, I will sit on the floor to play with the pets, if the pets enjoy my company. 
No dogs on furniture - sofas, chairs, etc. They are allowed on my bed; I keep a sheet on top that I can throw in the washer every week.
VCNJ~
The Neville kitties are not allowed on the table or on the kitchen counters. They are allowed on all other furniture.
Oh, man. I find this thread really icky. I don’t have any dogs or cats but I don’t like them on the furniture at all. Fur everywhere! It’s why I don’t particularly like to go over my friends’ houses that share their lives with furry mammals; I always come back with a ton of fur on my clothes.
For the moment, I do let my gecko walk on the couch, but I gotta be there. The betta isn’t getting out of his tank anytime soon. And I didn’t really like my bird walking on things, either, when I had one. She had a playpen!
I have a dog. He’s not allowed up on the furniture downstairs. He is allowed to sleep our beds. Blankets and comforters can be easily washed.
He doesn’t get up on the sofa in the bonus room either.
I was glad when I caught my rescue dog sleeping on the couch. To me, it meant that she finally felt “at home.” I just throw a blanket on the couch before I go to bed. She rarely gets on the bed, and only when she wants to get petted. Stop petting her and she leaves.
My ex-MIL would allow cats everywhere. I refused to eat at her house after she let one of her cats get on the counter and sniff the Thanksgiving roast. My dog, who would have just gone and slept in a corner, wasn’t allowed in the house because dogs are “filthy.”
Growing up, pets were only allowed on the “puke-and-wipe” furniture: the leather couch and the vinyl recliner. Nothing fur could stick to. Pet’s weren’t allowed on anything else. No coffee table, no fabric couch, no countertops, side board, bar, tables, or kitchen chairs. Up until our really old cat, Smokey, figured out that the kitchen chair seats were vinyl, then it was hard to argue with his logic. He was still banned from the table and counter tops. Cats were allowed on the bed, but not the dog, he was always too dirty.
I’m now regretting letting Lenny and Squiggy sit on the couch because it’s forever covered in fur. They are NOT allowed on tables or counter tops (including the coffee table). They aren’t allowed to beg in the proper dinning areas either.
No cat’s in bowls happening here unless the bowl is put on the floor.
ETA: No desk tops either, but they see to figure that on their own. In their kitty pea brains that qualifies as “table”.
Lenny and Squiggy are indoor cats. The pooch’s favourite outdoor acivity is to jump in a festering pond then roll in the dirt. We can always tell when he has been bad and climbed onto the bed for a nap, because there is sand in the bed and we have to change the sheets. :rolleyes:
The dog doesn’t clean his paws as thoroughly as the cats. He doesn’t clean his fur as thoroughly as the cats (hell, we’ve had to hose him off a couple of times before letting him in the house).
Basically, the indoor cats are a LOT cleaner than this particular big, wooly pooch.
Our cats are not allowed on any surface where we put our dinner plates (kitchen counter, dining room table, or coffee tables) simply because when I get up to go to the kitchen to get a glass of milk, I don’t want to come back to a cat feasting on my dinner. I know they get up on things when I’m not around, but they don’t do it in front of me, and that’s about all I can ask. I don’t worry about kitchen counters not being clean; I assume they’re covered in cat hair like everything else in the house, and never put food directly on them.
They’re (mostly) not allowed in our bedroom, either, because my husband is allergic. We also use the “cover the bed with something washable” method - they come in and snuggle before we kick them out for the night, then we take the cat sheet off and go to sleep. Other than that, they pretty much go where they will. It’s not like we have any square inch of the house that doesn’t have cat hair on it anyway. If we never get another pet, that will be the reason - the hair.
That reminds of one Thanksgiving at my best friend’s house. She always goes all out - setting a gorgeous table complete with fancy linens, candlesticks, flowers, etc. As we all trooped into the dining room for dinner, we were greeted by one of her cats smack in the middle of the table, legs splayed, licking his little kitty butthole. Nothing says “Happy Thanksgiving!” like a little pre-dinner anal cleansing…
Licorice is not allowed on the leather settee, the table or the worktops. He does own the beanbag, or sits on a dining room chair under the table. He can sit on a lap on the settee, though (if he doesn’t claw). My daughter has banned him from her bed, due to an increasing allergy to the cat. He doesn’t like anyone else’s bed.
He’s not a happy cat at the moment. After 2 recent abcesses (at £130 a time) he is no longer allowed to roam at night. He goes in the garage. This curtailing of his exercise has increased his weight, so he is now on a diet. He is rather grumpy. Not even the catnipped tennis ball makes him very happy.
Si
My cats go wherever they wish. Thankfully they really don’t wish to get on the counters, except one of them when he is very hungry. He’ll jump up as I’m opening the food but get down upon my saying, “Down!” None of the others have any desire to get on the counter.
One enjoys to lie on the kitchen table. I don’t really like it but can’t make him permanently stop. Since he lost 8 of his lives before I got him, I let him live it up in this one. I just clean it off a lot.
Beds? The cats let me sleep in their large bed, the one in “my” room, with all the pillows and the down comforter. If I’m nice, they’ll even congregate to one side so that I have maximum room. In winter, I am their own human heating pad, so they don’t mind sharing with me.
My cats are allowed anywhere but the kitchen table and counters. The dogs don’t get on the furniture, mostly. Sometimes a dog will jump up on hte bed, but they don’t sleep with my. I miss my Kate, a doberman I lost about 6 years ago. The dogs get a lot of attention (there are five of them) so I sort of figure the cats sleeping with me gives them some “me” time.
StG
The cat is allowed anywhere but on the bed, and on any kitchen surface but the floor. The dog is allowed on the floor only (she’s too big for anything else), and she’s not allowed to put more than two paws in the kitchen (to discourage begging, which has worked very well).
This I wanna see.
Maybe I should have put some parentheses in. The cat is allowed on the floor, but not on the counters, of the kitchen.
Oh hey, I have a cat who could probably ricochet off all the kitchen surfaces without ever touching the floor, which is why I want pics. 
Okay, I’m feeling like a horrible pet-mom, now. My dogs have always been permitted to be on the couch or in the bed (the only furniture that’s ever appealed to them). I’m currently dogless, but have two cats.
My cats are allowed to be anywhere except on the kitchen counters, until they display a tendency to misbehave. That is, my younger cat gets on my bureau just to find nifty things to play with – primarily hair ties that he can bat around and lose under the piano, the stove, the refrigerator, the entertainment console, etc. In the process of finding the hair ties, he’ll knock over other stuff, and I will become annoyed. So he knows he’s not allowed on the bureau when I’m in the apartment or in the apartment and awake.
Here’s the horrible pet-mom part: he’s also not allowed on the coffee table. My older cat is allowed on the coffee table. I have absolutely no rhyme or reason behind this rule. It’s just the way it is. When the older one is on the coffee table, I’m fine with it. When the younger one gets up there, I chase him off. I’ve tried to justify this to myself (and to them, as if it mattered), and I can’t. It bugs me when the kid is there, and doesn’t when the big boy is. Sometimes, reason just isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.