Blowing in the Wind
We have returned from our trip to Salt Lake to find that (1) Linus has grown another foot (twelve inches, I mean, not another appendage), that (2) both cats are now oblivious to the contradiction between (a) hanging out on the kitchen counter and (b) adhering to the family rule of "No feet where we eat," and that (3) a temperature of 40 degrees is really quite pleasant when you have spent the previous six days in the bitter cold, including that one afternoon when it was 5 degrees (before windchill) and you were 15,000 feet above sea level in a 50 mph gale and a blizzard that regularly encased you in a cloud of stinging snowflakes so thick you couldn't see the person skiing standing hunkering for dear life fifteen feet away. I don't know if you can even call it downhill skiing when halfway down every hill the wind blows you to a complete stop and you have to crosscountry flail your way fifty feet to the next slope. If I'd wanted to work out my arms, I would have gone rowing is all I'm saying.
More later. Send masseur.
Use a squirt bottle to help keep 'em off the counters. And anything else. I've given up on the dining table but the counters are such a huge no-no. I'm sure they go on them when no one's home- I have caught them so it's not perfect. Ah kitties. They do grow so fast?
And brrrrrr.
They like the squirt bottle. :(
i'm going to admit this to you... i gave up on the cats and the countertop. i am not saying i condone this behavior and that i don't yell, stamp my feet, chastise, etc... but deep down inside, i know they have this one won.
My cat also likes the squirt bottle, so much so in fact that during the last few real hot days (I'm in Australia, middle of summer here at the moment!) she lies stretched out on the cold kitchen tiles and I spray her to help her cool off!
I've heard that loud noises often work well, so a clap of pot lids or something similair...??
Oh, even better than loud noises and squirt bottles, lay out some tin foil on the counter where they like to jump up. (Most) cats hate the noise their paws make on the foil and will run for the hills when they first jump onto it.
Ahhhh I can't wait to move out to the Bay Area in two weeks! NYC is miserably cold right now, and I'm going to Vermont tomorrow where the real feel is going to be -21 this weekend! I don't even know what that feels like!
Hee! My cat liked the squirt bottle too. My mom had some luck with those citrus-scented Lysol wipes. Apparently most cats dislike citrus-y smells, so she'd just wipe down the counter, and VOILA! No cat, and disinfected counter!
I liked Michelle's suggestion with the pot lids. I think you could take it a step further and set up a motion detector on the counter and have it activate a cymbal crash to scare away the cats. It would also alert you to the fact that they violated the forbidden zone. (You might not get very much sleep though.)
Ooooo a masseur sounds nice.
Well, I'd like to see some snow. We keep oscillating between 80 degrees one day and a high of 34 the next. It's killing me.
"No feet where we eat" would be a great T-shirt. I see one for vegetarians, "No meat where we eat." Maybe one for avid gardeners, "No peat where we eat." Diabetics? "No sweet where we eat." Martha Stewart wannabes ... "Perfectly neat where we eat." Possibilities ... possibilities.
Welcome back!
Wow, all these kitties who like the squirt bottle? Weird. Mine HATE water. Punk will run from just seeing the bottle (though I may have helped that along by also using the kitchen sink sprayer a few times.) Alex sometimes runs from the bottle but he usually just needs to hear it being primed. Crazy. All I can think of is yelling and loud noises. But then again, training cats? Yeah, they got us trained.
Growing up, we had to let our kitties be on the counter. Here's why: we had a dog and to keep the dog from eating the kitties' food, the kitty bowls had to be up high. On the counter.
Ah, well. It happens.
Oh! Just remembered: an easy way to create a loud noise, in case you can't get to pot lids quickly enough, is to put a handful of pennies into a can and shake it.
OOOhhh Ky Eliza that is a good one! Probably better than pot lids cos you could use it anywhere (much easier than pot lids which are bigger and generally only used in one room!).
I'm going to try this out when I get my new lounge chairs which Tilly will not be allowed to claw like she does the bedraggled old ones.
What was that about training cats....?? :)
Ha--my crazy-ass cat is crazier than yours. Not only does she not mind spray bottles, but she likes to chew on the supposedly "natural bitter" spray that cats are supposedly supposed to hate. Ha!