Our 9 month old bengal girl (Alley) is impossible to keep off the counters and subsequently out of the food! Any ideas how to keep her down?

Plenty of reading for you here!

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viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17495&hilit=counters

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15338&hilit=counters


Good luck!


Heather

Raiden jumps up on the peninsula in my kitchen when I come home. That way he's at my level for his loving. I really don't have a problem with him jumping up there otherwise. If he does, I just pick him up and put him back down on the floor and he's usually fine. He's not interested in people food at all, just the sound of a can of cat food opening.

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The little monsters 3

Best way to keep a Bengal off the kitchen counters is to get rid of kitchen counters...

No there is not. Your cat is not misbehaving its just simply acting out its curious nature. I tried with my two cats to do that but it just never worked.

Bengals are curious beasts and anything your doing up there has to be investigated. Rather then fight it just accept and make the counters cat proof....put up the food, seal the containers, keep breakable sharp objects up.

You will end up wiping your counters alot. I suggest buying one of these...

http://www.ecloth.com

The cloth requires no chemcials to sterilize your surfaces. The fibers in the cloth pick up 99% of the bacteria on them. I was cautious at first till I watched there videos and saw the reviews. The alternative was going through alot of chemcial sprays since I wipe my counters down a couple times a day. All you do is get the 1st cloth wet wipe it down, then use the 2nd cloth to dry it. It actually cleans surfaces better then a antibacterial spray and paper towel.

I honestly believe this is something we as cat owners have to accept. I used to get irritated by this but it is like with dogs, do not leave food out or easily accessible because they will make a mess of it or eat it. They will go on top of counters as well as everything else they can get on. I used to get more scared than irritated as they liked to jump on top of my stove, and my worst fear was them jumping up and burning them self as I'm cooking etc.

But I found that they are curious, and so you need to either give them space to watch you do everything in the kitchen so that they are less likely to go where you don't want them :)

* Keep food and dirty dishes off the counters, if there's nothing there they are less likely to want to go up on the counters as nothing will interest them.
* Do they have a space to sit for them self? Maybe make them a shelf where they can see everything you do in the kitchen.

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Fionna & Finn