5 Easy Ideas To Preserve Cats Off Counters

The kitchen counter is amongst the foremost hazardous locations in our dwelling, the place we maintain meals, sharp objects, retailer electrical home equipment, and cook dinner meals on a sizzling range.

Our cats are instinctively drawn to excessive locations due to their innate climbing and agile nature. Cats really feel most secure and safe when recognizing, resting, and sleeping from excessive commentary factors.

Cats, likewise, are inquisitive and opportunistic feeders. Kitties which are extremely motivated by meals will discover the counter extraordinarily tempting proving too laborious to withstand when meals or crumbs left in plain sight.

Although it might drive us loopy and unhygienic, from our feline’s viewpoint, it’s a pure behaviour to leap or climb locations which are thought of off-limits to us.

If you happen to resolve your cat isn’t allowed on benches or tables, the counter should develop into a floor your moggie doesn’t need to discover.

How To Preserve Cats Off Of Counters?

There are a number of methods to maintain your cat from leaping on counters, together with offering elevated platforms for them to make use of as a substitute.

Observe these pointers to stop and handle counter leaping behaviour with the usage of coaching and different options.

1. Purpose Excessive In The Kitchen

Place a perch on the kitchen window or let your cat sit on prime of the pantry cabinets by stepping on and off the fridge. Sviatlana Yankouskaya / Shutterstock.com

Cats love being close to us. Sitting on the kitchen counter places them at an an identical stage as their human. Instead, provide your feline companion a excessive viewing platform close by, like a cat tower or prime of the fridge – voted by cats as “most popular kitchenette spot”.

Counter cruising is equally common in properties the place home windows are positioned close to worktops, since chicken watching is a cat’s beloved pastime. Place a perch on the kitchen window or let your cat sit on prime of the pantry cabinets by stepping on and off the fridge. In case your cat is getting on the worktop to entry the window, cowl the glass with a blind or window movie.

2. Preserve Meals Out Of Sight

Protecting meals out of sight will assist to maintain food-motivated cats off of the counter.

No matter whether or not meals is supplied by people, cats are generalist, resourceful feeders, drawn to meals present in novel places. They may scavenge for scraps off kitchen counters, eat from bowls, steal meals out of bins, and lounge in heat spots near the range within the hope of getting a deal with.

Being an obligate carnivore, feed your cat species acceptable food regimen in small frequent quantities away from counters and don’t go away meat or grub unattended on bench-tops, particularly when you find yourself gone from dwelling.

Present puzzle feeders and consuming stations all through the home. Retailer meals within the fridge and cabinets to keep away from foraging.

Additionally Learn: The ten Greatest Cat Sluggish Feeders

3. Counter Browsing Coaching

Coaching your cat to go to a mat or stool on command will assist them to cease utilizing the counter.

 Probably the most environment friendly option to stop counter-surfing is to switch your cat’s behaviour with the usage of clicker coaching. There are three major teaching steps to resolve counter browsing:

• Practice ‘go to mat’ or ‘sit on a stool’ behaviour outdoors the meal preparation surroundings. The mat or stool turns into a rewarding place moreover to sitting on a better stool and is an alternate to leaping on kitchen counters.
• Slowly approximate to actuality situation with few distractions.
• Reinforce the behaviour at a excessive fee in real-life context with as many repetitions as potential.

4. Design A Stimulating And Exploratory Vertical Surroundings

By giving your cats an surroundings with loads of retailers for his or her climbing and exploratory instincts, you may scale back their want to leap on the counter.

Present your cat with acceptable vertical choices for climbing, scratching and resting by creating an exploratory surroundings. Cat timber and furnishings is a large hit, though will be costly.

• Create tall resting areas indoors with cabinets, cupboards, desks, dressers, chairs and wardrobes. Place a snug mattress or blanket within the spot and often go away treats or catnip to entice your kitty.
• A window shelf or window-mounted mattress will present infinite stimulation and a resting place for one or a number of cats.
• Construct an out of doors cat enclosure. Place tree branches, cat-safe crops, water, cat-grass, cabinets, DIY cat tree and hammock in your cat to perch whereas remaining out of attain of potential threats.
• In multi-cat properties, set-up loads of towering sleeping spots to increase territory due to this fact the cats don’t really feel in competitors for assets and use the countertop.
• In case your cat should share a room collectively along with your beloved canine, they are going to be extra inclined to keep away from the bottom and intention excessive. Arrange lookout factors and cuddlers on prime of bookshelves.
• Elevated resting areas can vary from just a few inches off the underside to the ceiling. A cushion on the ground, cardboard fortress or a small cat tree can also be a suitable top for cats with arthritis or affected by blindness.

5. Deterrents

Deter your cat from climbing areas that you simply need to maintain off-limits.

Deter your cat from climbing areas that you simply need to maintain off-limits. Doable deterrents embrace:

• Double-sided tape: cats dislike strolling on gluey surfaces.
• Aluminium trays stuffed with a little bit of water: some cats have an aversion to water while others don’t thoughts stepping in moist areas.
• Carpet runners or mats with spiky nubs face-up: cats don’t like strolling on prickly surfaces.
• Partly cowl baking sheets or lengthy items of cardboard alongside the sting of the counter the place the cat jumps to make the floor unstable. You possibly can add empty tin cans on the aspect to make noise when it falls off the countertop.
• PetSafe SSSCAT Spray Deterrent detects pet motion and releases a burst of unscented mist inside a radius of 1 meter. Sprays work quick, so they don’t seem to be beneficial for use round skittish or nervous cats. A nervous cat could develop into frightened and averse to particular rooms or scared to manoeuvre across the the rest of the home.

Learn Extra: Greatest Invisible Fences For Cats Reviewed

Do NOT use a squirt water gun, because it solely teaches your feline to run away if you choose up the sprayer and return when you’re gone.

Moreover, some cats don’t thoughts the spray and it doesn’t work as a deterrent. As soon as your cat is persistently utilizing the allotted skyscraper or stationary place, take away the deterrent!

Conclusion

With the appropriate coaching and environmental adjustments, you and your cat can comfortably share the kitchen with out harmful or unhygienic counter-surfing.

You will need to grasp that cats love climbing and perching on excessive surfaces. They don’t simply misbehave, they categorical instinctive conduct. They don’t seem to be as cognitively superior as people, considering when it comes to proper or unsuitable or performing out of spite.

Though they could appear annoying, they behave in a really coherent method relative to their surroundings.

Reward your cat for what you want her or him to attempt to do, not what you don’t need them to do. If all makes an attempt fail, contact a countertop leaping detective – higher known as a cat behaviorists.