Conference misery::feline_v1

realistically, that is what you'll have to do.  You are fighting nature
in this one....the cat's natural instinct to get up off the ground.  The
best option is to offer them something that is:

	1) higher, and therefore "safer" in their opinion.
	2) equipped with "hiding places" - the ultimate safety to a cat
	   is to be in a place where it feels it cannot be seen or gotten
	   to, yet it has a clear view of the outside world.

There are some very fine cat trees with built-in boxes for hiding in,
steps for climbing up, etc.  The ones that have pressure contact with the
ceiling in order to assure stability are the best bet.  Remember, if the
tree ever comes down on them while they are playing, they will probably not
return to it.  If you get them optional play/nap/hide places in the same
general area as the coffee table, etc., THEN you might be able to use
STRINGENT behavior modification techniques to train them away from your
"forbidden" surfaces - that means you must make the investment/time allocation
to be SURE the cats NEVER get to the surfaces in question - when you are
home or not - without suffering some reprimand, whether a squirt of water
or a mild tingle in the feet.  If you have many "forbidden" surfaces, then
you will either have to invest a fortune in the shock mats, or confine the
kittens to a "safe" area when you are not home.  When you are home, you must
remain eternally vigilant...and throw that mat over the coffee table when
you leave the room.  If you are consistant enough, you can train them off
the surfaces you wish to restrict.

However, behavior modification does NOT work if you don't catch them at
the offending behavior EVERY TIME they do it....that is the basis of
behavior modification - swift, SURE reward and punishment.

I'm too lazy for this...so I just wash the counter well before cooking,
wash and dry the table well before eating, etc.  It seems cheaper and easier
to me...and I zap 'em with the water gun when I see them go where I don't
want them...  8^}

    I am like Dian, my cats have trained me to wash the counters and 
    tables before using them.  I have managed to convey to them that when I
    am around, the tables and counters are mostly off limits.
    
    Talk about behavior modification.  When Laci was recovering from her
    run it with the pellet gun, I used to feed her roast beef.  It was one
    of the few things that she would eat and eat.  Since she had lost so
    much weight I wanted to encourage her to eat a lot.  Well the only way
    to get the roast beef into her and not in the others was to put her on
    the kitchen counter and then guard her while she ate.  Well, I was 
    rewarding her for being on the counter and I didn't even realize it!
    I can't get that cat off that counter for anything now.  I squirt her
    and she stands there and meows at me with the most plaintive meow.
    I know that she is expecting more roast beef.  :^)
    
    Jo

as said, there is always the option of the cat training the human in whatever
way is desirable...I hate to think of how much my furballs have trained me..
behavior modification for sure!

     The idea about the cat tree is a good one -- thanks.

     While I might be able to be trained to think that cats on the coffee 
table are OK, the kitchen table cloth looks absolutely gross with cat hair 
all over it!!

     Can I get these electric mats at any pet supply store?  Mail order 
from where?  About how much do they cost?

    I like you can't bare to have cat hair where there is food.
    Here is what I have done:
    
    Feed the cats first thing, then clean  the kitchen counters
    before preparing any food.  We live in a condo where our
    kitchen over looks the dining room and our only table is
    within all sights of the kitchen. I never put a table cloth
    on the table until we are ready to eat. On the dining room
    table at all times is a runner going down the middle of the 
    table with a silk flower arrangement on it. The cats don't
    like the runner because it's not big enough and they end up
    laying on the table and it's slippery. They ignore the flower
    arrangement (unlike some cats, huh Roberta) and before we put
    a cloth on the table to eat or placemats we wipe the table and
    make sure no cat hairs are on it.  This sounds like an awful
    lot of work but it part of our schedule.
    
    I have learned over the years, it's a lot easier to work around
    these problems and you get to enjoy your kitties more. A lot of
    resentment can build up facing a situation you find unpleasent
    and it makes for anything but a calm heart which is what we all
    need these days.
    
    Barbara and her 3M's Mocha, Ming and my wonderful Mr Miyagi

    Yes, Barbara!  My centerpiece could use some sprucing up again.  It now
    looks like a cat's version of a flower arrangement!!
    
    Kelsey spends most of his waking hours on the kitchen counter.  I
    prepare food with him right next to me (I know everyone is saying YUCK
    right now!).  We do find the occasional cat hair in our spaghetti but
    it doesn't take away from the flavor of the food.
    
    Really, though, I do keep a very clean house, don't I Barbara?!
                                                    
    
    --Roberta

    
    No extra charge for cat hair in food !!!!!!!!!!!
    
    E.T. feline lazy

I have a white kitchen tile counter.  I keep a spray bottle filled with a
mild bleach and water solution on the counter.  A quick spray and wipe down
takes seconds and cleans, bleaches odd black marks, and sterilizes the cooking
surface to me satisfation.  Our table is also topped with tiles - and they
are COLD - it is pretty and the best investment I ever made - it needs only
placemats and they are not placed on the table until we eat....and the cold
tile is unpleasant for little furry butts to hang out on.  The dining room
table is good oak and I perfer it to be visable until I serve dinner on it
so we don't keep a cloth over it....a quick wipe down with a cloth and
covering it with a table cloth before serving dinner is our solution there.
None of this takes any great amount of time, and it keeps me happy with
the sanitation issues.

I know the cats don't use the kitchen table, and they seldom go on the counter
because I NEVER leave anything up there that they might like.  This is the
hardest thing to learn .....I wash up and put away AS I COOK so when I serve
dinner, the kitchen is alreay cleaned - no food to tempt little feet...I clean
and put away RIGHT AFTER EATING - again, no temptation to fur faces.  My
kitchen has become a place that is ONLY interesting if I or my roommate is
IN it, because it is certainly NOT a source of food otherwise.  They are
so successful at survival because they learn where to find food VERY quickly...
leave the temptation for them to find ONCE and you have a problem for life.

    Have any of you seen Roberta's home?  Well, we that have and
    her Mom too all laugh at Roberta (behind her back) because
    as you enter the house it's like stepping into a magazine
    and someone put the cats there for effect. There is never a 
    sign of hair on the furniture or any place else. (Now if you
    want to drive Roberta crazy, sit on her couch and then get 
    up as if you are leaving walk to the hall way (she in the mean
    time has gone behind you and straighened the pillows and couch)
    and then go back and sit down.) Sorry Roberta just had to tell
    that one. (That last statement will be a real test of our friend-
    ship.)
    
    Some day I am going to find out what she does to get all the cat
    hair off the cat trees as they look like brand new and not used
    but as you sit there the cats are all over them.
    
    Barbara & her 3M's
    
    

    
    
    	Barbara
    
    	When you find out....let the rest of us know!
    
    	JJ who would like to get the kitty fur off her papasan chair!
    

    Re: .9
    
    Can I rent Roberta for a week?  (More like a year, actually,
    given the depth of stuff in my house....)
    
    All this talk of cats on tables reminds me of an Elizabeth Peters
    (or maybe her pseudonym Barbara Michaels) book in which the heroine
    is trying to slip some knockout stuff into the food
    she's preparing for the kidnappers and she thinks to herself something
    as follows:
    
    Yes, the butter was strangely level, and had fine marks over its
    entire surface.  The plates were suspiciously clean, almost as if they
    had been washed.  Not a scrap of that morning's bacon was to be seen.
    Unquestionably, the cat had been on the table.  Better not to mention
    it to Smith, who might be one of those fastideous people who preferred
    not to share their meals with the cat.
    

    I have a wonderful gizmo for removing cat hair from chairs, etc.
    It looks like a brush, only no bristles, just a rough surface.  You
    brush it in one direction to pick up the hair, then after a while
    a few swips in the other direction get the hair off it itself in one
    bunch.  Trouble is, I got it from a long gone friend, and I have no
    idea where he got it.  It looks suspiciously like something suitable
    for being sold on tv (a Hair-o-matic no doubt :-)
                   

    Can't remember where I read it, and can't quote it exactly, but I sure
    agree with the following:
    
    	By dint of great effort and consistency you can train a cat to stay
    	off the kitchen counters - in your presence.
    
    :)
    aq