Kitten on my Counters. Help!

TequilaMockingBird

Hi all, I got a kitten for my daughter, and she's doing great with her litter tray etc. But she's driving me nuts climbing up on the kitchen table and kitchen counters. I'm bleaching everthing several times a day. She's started climbing up the wall from the garden in the kitchen window. I've tried a spray bottle of water, which works if I catch her, but dosn't seem to be training her not to do it.
Any help would really be appreciated.

FranknFurter

What has worked (somwhat) for us is try rubbling lemon juice or vicks vapo-rub (anything stinky but safe really) where u dont want her to be. She will *hate* the smell. Won't be pleasant for you either for a day or so, but it does work. If you *really* want to push it, make the counter-top sticky also, cats will not stand or sit on sticky areas.

It does depend on the cat though, I tried the "NO!" method for three weeks with little or no effect, as soon as we werent looking she was back up there.

Right now Im trying to figure out how to teach her to keep away from the blinds, she has broken one already and they aint cheap. She seems to have some kind of obsession with them, No amount of "no!" is working, so Im gonna have to come up with somthing else lol
Im smiling but its not really funny, my mother paid nearly 200 euro to put blinds in the house as a "Moving-in gift", if she saw these particular ones in this room now she would have a fit!

b

morgana

Try putting crinkled up tin foil on the counter - you can fix it into place with blutak or similar - this stopped our cat from hopping on the big plant and using it as a toilet :-).

TequilaMockingBird

Many thanks for your ideas, will try everything and let u know!

FranknFurter

Wondering if you had any success with this?
Our kitty is absolutely destroying the blinds still and nothing we do seems to work.

B

Kasabian

sueme wrote:

Hi all, I got a kitten for my daughter, and she's doing great with her litter tray etc. But she's driving me nuts climbing up on the kitchen table and kitchen counters. I'm bleaching everthing several times a day. She's started climbing up the wall from the garden in the kitchen window. I've tried a spray bottle of water, which works if I catch her, but dosn't seem to be training her not to do it.
Any help would really be appreciated.

I presume that your daughter loves the kitten and spends alot of time playing in the house with her. The problem i encountered with our kitten is that we were allowing her to stay in the house for long periods and as they love their comfort they will want to stay inside as much as possible. When our kitten was left outside her only route back into the house was via the kitchen window ( normally the kitchen door was closed and so the window led her directly to the kitchen work tops). However after studying this behaviour for a while I noticed that if the door was left ajar she would always use it and not bother with the window. This seemed to have stopped the use of the window and kitchen tops as a route into the house. Next step was to install a cat flap which she only ever uses now even if the window is wide open. Cats are generally lazy creatures and will at all costs use the easiest method to get where they want to go. I have tried all kinds of other things to stop her climbing on the work tops and only realised that a slap with newspaper and the installation of the cat flap stopped her climbing. Also the door is an aluminium door but it is easy enough to install a cat flap. Hope this helps and I hope you take the ime to study her ways and I bet you that your problem is the same as mine was.

tk123

morgana wrote:

Try putting crinkled up tin foil on the counter -.

Our cat stopped being afriad of tin foil when he learned that it can contain food!:D When my cat goes somewhere I don't want him to be -eg balanciing on my lcd tv i click my fingers at him - he doesn't like the noise and gets down.

FlutterinBantam

The kitten will grow out of it when he/she gets a bit older and heavier

LegacyUser

FranknFurter, really glad to see you modding the forum - no better guy for it!

Now Bubby .., back on topic....

Our cats used to wreak the gaff - scratching furniture and wallpaper etc. :eek: What we did was get some of those scratching posts in Argos (cost about 10 euros each) and put cat nip on them. For a while the cats would just lie on their backs upside down kicking the scratching post. Now they just stretch and scratch.

It does the tick - happy cat and a happy bubby too.:rolleyes:

FranknFurter

FlutterinBantam wrote:

The kitten will grow out of it when he/she gets a bit older and heavier

(Thanks Bubby)

Ours has'nt
And she is fat and in no way kitten-like.
She is still wrecking the blinds despite all our efforts.
Morning noon and night she attacks them even if we are in the room looking at her! (She is immediately put in her box in isolation with no distractions, and she knows its not accecptable but its like she just dosent care).

B

SMK

I had the same problem with the blinds with my cat Smokey. He would even spy on the neighbours by putting his paw on the slats and pulling them down so he could have a look out if he was too lazy to climb through them. But I solved the problem!! Net curtains!

LegacyUser

SMK!! What a nosey rubber necker .. your cat! :eek:

FranknFurter

SMK wrote:

I had the same problem with the blinds with my cat Smokey. He would even spy on the neighbours by putting his paw on the slats and pulling them down so he could have a look out if he was too lazy to climb through them. But I solved the problem!! Net curtains!

Unfortunately this are the vertical ones that are like IIIII IIIII across two large double doors so net curtains arent an option. That did work in my old house though.

B

hadook

The "time out" approach has never worked on mine.

The "distract like hell until they find something new to do" approach is the only one that works for me. Dangling toys/ scratchers/ things to chase/ things on a stick/ large cat scratchers and furniture etc. Liberally dosed with catnip for the 4 that react to it

FranknFurter

unfortunately our gal is catnip-immune.

I did try the distract approach but I had a feeling she was starting to do it when she "wanted" a distraction lol
Jan suggested the time-out approach and I have been doing it religiously, nothing yet really but fingers crossed

B

SMK

When I got my first cats - Smokey & Bandit - play time for them began as soon as I turned out the light at night! I would spend about an hour getting up and taking one cat down from the curtains or the other from the top of a door! Then it dawned on me they were getting so much attention from me so why should they stop! I decided to ignore them and I would let them do what they wanted!! It only took about 5 days by which stage when I turned out the light at night they would go to their beds and curl up and go to sleep!!

Victor

Get a big dog!

hadook

Big dogs only make the problem worse

You should see the damage Yama has done to the house - at least the cats don't eat plasterboard.

Ruu_Old

Funnily enough, our one doesn't go on counters. Tables are another matter but we had some empty sprite cans on the table and she knocked them over by accident, they made a noise and she jumped off. Have had no issues since, so I guess she sorted it herself.

wasted_winter

I had this problem with our two - but we soon solved it.

If you see her doing it a spray of water usually does the trick. Failing that I went to level two - a nice liberal sprinking of pepper over the area (this will work on the blinds aswell) - they'll learn!!!

Always use 'the voice' when you catch them - later one you'll just have to say NO & they'll obey (well sort of, cats don't really obey - they just give you a look of distain and move on to find something else to entertain themselves with!!!)

You might want to try some good entertainment for them - if they are indoor cats pick up some toys & spend some time playing with them to burn up some of their energy.

Also by nature they like to be up high - so those cat trees are great for that.

Oh & keep a toy handy for when you take them off the counter - you don't want to make it look like a reward, but hopefully if they see a toy nearby it will act as a distraction and they should happily wander off...

Remember - dogs have owners, cats have staff!!!