‘Having a cat’ means different things to different people. For some, the idea of allowing a cat to sleep in your bed is outrageous, while others would balk at the idea of making Fluffy sleep on the floor. Personally, I have a feeling my cat is pretty far along the ‘spoiled rotten’ continuum. So, I thought I would survey the Straight Dope cat owner community: what level of autonomy does your cat (or do your cats) have?
My cat is very spoiled. She sleeps in our bed at night. But she is not allowed on tables or counters.
My cat isn’t “allowed” on the counters but, if you walk out of the bedroom at 2am, you immediately hear the “thump!” of a cat jumping off a counter and onto the kitchen floor.
Two posts, no photos. Just not good enough, people!
She’s allowed on the beds and on the couches. Her favourite spot is on window sills, we have very deep window sills and she can spend all day on the main lounge windowsill, watching the world go by.
She is definitely not allowed on any kitchen surfaces. She has a cat bed on my computer desk, so she’s allowed on that, but she’s not allowed on my husband’s computer desk and seems to understand the difference.
She’s not allowed on the piano (and she only tried once and lost one of her cat lives in the process) but she is allowed to use the piano stool to help get up to the lounge windowsill. If I have absentmindedly tucked it against the piano, her howls of protest let me know.
They’re spoiled, allowed to be pretty much anywhere we are. I do draw the line at kitchen counters/the stove/above the cupboards. We don’t eat/prepare food at the kitchen table, so that’s become their only allowed perch there. I’m not a fan of them hanging out on the end tables in the living room, and I will scoot them off if they seem like they’re planning on curling up for a spell.
My cats aren’t allowed on the table, but they do sneak on it sometimes.
My cats aren’t allowed in my bedroom because there are too many places they could hide in there, and I usually keep my bedroom door closed anyway.
My cats *go *on counters and tables, and shelves, and tops of dressers and anywhere they damn well please, while I have squirt guns, cans of pennies and baby rattles stashed all over the house to try to break them of the habit. I have intentionally not cleaned or tidied the top of my dresser in months, to make it difficult for them to walk up there. I’m losing the war, here. (Yes, he has plenty of water elsewhere, this cat is not dehydrating, he’s just lives by the motto, “You’re not the boss of me.”)
Oddly, there are two small tables - TV trays, my grandmother used to call them - one of which houses my laptop and one near it holds my Stuff, but is often nearly empty, where the cats don’t go. These are the only two surfaces in the house I’ve successfully trained them off of.
I’m really allergic to cat hair. Any cats we keep have to be outdoor cats.
My cats are indoor cats during the day and heated basement cats at night. I draw the line at 4 am cat food demands and longhairs who go under the bed and snore.
Cats, what level of autonomy do your humans have? is probably a better question…
I lost the war years ago. The SuperKitties are shamelessly putrid, and go wherever the heck they want to. They live in my lap or on the furniture. I sleep with all three at night.
Despite all that, Widget is the only one of the three that gets up on counters. All. The. Time. The other two have never shown much interest. I just make sure to disinfect the surfaces before cooking.
How does one “not allow” a cat on a table or counter, short of putting up a barbwire fence or engaging in 24 hour supervision?
The only places our cats don’t go are places they haven’t figured out how to get to. Allowing has nothing to do with it.
Indoor cat, but she’s allowed anywhere she can get to. But 16 year old creaky cat hips are making the destinations increasingly limited, alas. Mostly she’s interested in heat and water, though, so as long as she can get to faucets and I keep the wood stove glowing, I have a happy cat.
Easy: get a couple of fresh new snapper-type mousetraps, set them and carefully lay them snap-side down on the counter where kitty likes to sneak when you’re not looking. Retreat to another room and listen. When kitty hops up there, KABANG! Doesn’t harm kitty but makes her think twice about going up there again. 
There’s really not much point in saying my cats aren’t “allowed” places, because they just smirk at us and ignore our wishes anyway. The only thing that stops them is closed doors. We have a four-bedroom house, and each of us has our own office/storage room in addition to our bedroom and the fourth bedroom which is half home office, half cat habitat. The two personal office/storage rooms are always closed, as is my bathroom (I have the one in the hall outside the bedroom–spouse has the one in the bedroom).
Counters? Tables? Ha!
And yeah, they do sleep with us, and we both like it.
Well, it’s good to know I’m not the only one whose cat’s allowed everywhere! One thing I am trying to discourage, though, is my cat stalking my plate. I’ll be eating something, look down, and see her staring up with her eyes narrowed and focused on my fork . . . :eek:
My cat doesn’t go on the counters, but that’s not really my line. I don’t know why, the counters never held much interest for the cat. So he doesn’t go on them, but I didn’t take any particular action to stop him.
He’s also an indoor cat, so in that sense, he’s not allowed to go outside. I still voted for the final answer, because the issue seemed to framed as anywhere humans are allowed to go in the house.
Our cats have always been allowed everywhere except kitchen counters/tables. Never had trouble training them either. We’ve been lucky, just a couple of stern "No!"s and no further trouble.
We did this with a bassett hound*, but I’d be worried about getting a cat’s tiny bones. I’d expect a mousetrap could snap with enough force to break a paw.
*Eventually, I got so tired of resetting mousetraps that I soldered a few of them open, figuring the sight of them would deter him. Took him about an afternoon to learn how to tell a soldered mousetrap from a live one.
Free Range Cat.
The kitchen counter is the only place she can eat. If we leave her bowl on the floor, the dogs will eat her food.
With a dog door, she roams in and out with impunity, and climbs whatever shelves she wants.
There is a downside to that freedom. Last night I found the back half of a chipmunk under the air hockey table. And the face.:eek:
The basement and the attic are like Disneyland to her. She’ll stay a day or more chasing mice or whatever it is that cats do in the attic.
And she sleeps on whichever bed, sofa, or chair she feels, but usually at my wife’s feet.