Urgh...Leo is a peristent little snot when it comes to people food. He likes the weirdest stuff too, he loves cottage cheese, strawberries, tomatos, and any type of meat especially. I am forever catching him up on the counters trying to get to our food when I am trying to prepare it even! I scold him, and set him down or even squirt him with water but only deters him for oh...maybe 5 seconds and he's right back at it. He also is keeping me on my toes with cleaning the dishes directly after meal time otherwise he is in the sink licking them clean. Any suggestions for keeping this little bugger off the sink and out of our food? I am scared he'll get sick or eat something poisionous! Other than that he is fun, and cute, and wonderful but his is certainly full of mischief!

when you are prepping food, eating, etc., put him in another room. He will complain to start with but will soon learn this is time out time

Regards

Well with Zebedee my breeder had already got into the habit of saying a firm 'no' and then placing him down from the worktop whenever he jumped on. She advised me to continue doing the same even if I was tempted to keep him around me whilst in the kitchen otherwise he would always assume he had free roam. So I did. And it's worked!!!

Occasionally if he smells something tempting (fresh chicken is his favourite) and prepares to jump onto the worktop I just have to say 'Zebedee no!' firmly but without raising my voice and it always works. As a reward I then give him some chicken (I always buy him some with ours anyway), stroke him and say 'Zebedee good boy' - he loves it!! He turns into a purr machine whilst eating his chicken and then has no interest in our food - my breeder also said because cats get so excited by all the different smells around our dinner time we should feed them at the same as when we're sitting down to eat because then even if they do finish before us and roam into the dining area they'll be too satisfied to be tempted by our food..so i've done this since day 1 and amazingly, it actually works!!

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Zakiyya C: Mum to Zebedee - Silver Spotted Bengal & Coco Mademoiselle - Usual Abyssinian

thats a good tip zebedee,

Mitzy jumped onto my lap the other day and found herself standing in a plate of beans on toast, so we now sit in the kitchen at the table with the kitchen door closed, which is hard if they are outside as they use the kitchen window to get out...

Mitzy jumps up on the bench when your preparing food too, its so annoying, its going to be hard to say no at her jumping up when she has to jump up to get out into the enclosure.

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Hestia Gone but not forgotten, RIP sweet princess.
Zeus Gone but not forgotten, RIP big fella, our Nookie bear.