How do you keep your cats off your table? We are having so much trouble keeping Tucker from jumping on the table while we’re eating. He also gets on our counters at the most inopportune times. I would never “hit” an animal and I read that the whole water spray thing isn’t nice either, are there ways to make this work without just giving in to him?

He’s also become a beggar, which is partially my fault because after Schmitty died, I felt so badly for him, I fed him people scraps like chicken, etc. Now, I have created a monster. :[

We don’t have an actual dining table, so unless we are eating out back (which poses its own outdoor kitty issues), we eat off of our coffee table. Kali isn’t terribly interested in people food, but Dub can be a real pest. I can’t conceive of any situation where we would ever hit our cats. We used the spray bottles for a while, and now the cats have gotten to the point where we just have to pick them up and they run, but more often than not, we just use the gentle-but-firm push away while saying “NO.” As a last resort we’ll pick him up and lock him in the bedroom until we’ve finished eating.

Dub has definite trigger foods that interest him more than others – cheese, chicken, prosciutto and other cured meats – and with the exception of a little bit of chicken on very rare occasions, he can’t have those things anymore with his tummy issues. It was definitely harder right after he came home from the hospital (particularly because we had fought so hard to get him to eat ANYTHING that I hated to deny him), but it has gotten easier over time.

I wish I had a better answer for you…

Yeah, the best thing is negative reinforcement… so long as he begs and doesn’t get anything, he’ll lose interest eventually…. well, we can hope!

I just had some ice cream. He was in my face the ENTIRE time. What a pest! I made him this way. I have to undo it now.

Thanks, guys!

Mr. B. will get in my face if I’m eating on the sofa, but not the table! And I cannot leave anything in the sink unwashed. He’ll lick everything! I just had to buy a new coax because he ATE through the damned CABLE. I hope there are no ill effects to come.