She’ll jump up onto any elevated surface if the notion grabs her (all very normal for a cat, of course), but if there’s food above, she won’t do it. I mean, look: I’ve got a turkey breast sliced up and lying open and fragrant on the counter. She’ll beg, but won’t jump and steal. Ever. It’s like she views the kitchen counters where I prepare food to be off-limits. Has she no feline self-respect?
I haven’t taught her to behave this way. I can not figure this moggie out.
wish my two cats had that same respect 
I tell you, it makes no sense whatsoever. She’s quirky even for a cat.
2 words: water pistol (a little fun i a twisted/cathartic way! 
)
Wait for them to do something you don’t like, and as you shoot say the word “CAT!” in a harsh, scolding voice. Before long it’ll just take the word ‘cat’ in that specific voice to have pussems behaving.
Whatever you do don’t spank them on the rear–grab@$$ being their favorite game mine never could make the connection between a tap on the hip and punishment ( they immediately understand a light slap on the forehead tho’)
Yes, never strike a cat for disciplinary purposes. Ever. There’s no need. Well, a light tap on the nose or forehead, as you say, are okay, I think, but I wouldn’t want to do that too often and risk the cat associating my touch with unpleasantness. Cats hate loud, abrupt noises: I clap my hands together and bark, “Hey!” when herself is being naughty. Works every time; she stops, scampers away and gives me that “ha-ha” look.
And she’s usually checking to see how long it’ll take me to get around to doing it, anyway. It’s not as if she doesn’t know beforehand what I’ll think of her misdeeds.
More often than not, I can just shoo her away or pick her up and move her from her latest project.
No, she knows for sure. As a rule Hazel checks to make sure you’re watching before she begins to whack everything off the table onto the floor.
It’s not really a cat; no way. I have two - one is now too hefty to jump up and steal food, but the other has been found on the stove with her head in a hot pot (I didn’t say she was smart). But, we love them both. One is so cute and playful and the other is loyal and smart. We’re looking into one of those Vincent Price machines to make them into one.
Philo
I was visiting one of my favorite places, Lakeshore Hardwoods, where they have a beautiful resident cat who seems to own the entire premises. She was sitting on the sales counter as Brian, the nominal proprietor, and I were discussing what a fine cat she is.
“Yes, and she’s a lot of fun, too,” Brian remarked. He took a ball point pen from his pocket and set it on the desk next to the cat. Instantly, with an air of bored nonchalence, she batted the pen onto the floor.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Well, she’ll jump up onto the table sometimes when I’m eating there, but it has to be a really big draw for her to do that. Otherwise she doesn’t bother for some reason. Countertop: maybe when I’m asleep, but I don’t leave cat-friendly goodies out. She’s never done it when I’m up and about, food or no. She’ll try to lure me into the kitchen while making noises of desperate longing, though. That’s how she deals with it.
Usually I eat when I’m seated in front of the TV, and to display her hope for a taste, she’ll stretch her forelegs up to my knee and dig her claws in. Man, I hate that.
Yeah, never strike a cat, especially if they still have their claws, for you never know when they will decide to strike back!
Pyscho Kitty, aka Kida, my feline landlord, has learned that a shout from me means that she has to stop whatever she is doing right away or risk getting wet. Amazing the range on that 49 cent water pistol.
She does appreciate my warming chairs for her though, and will immediately jump into whatever chair I have just vacated. I’ll be sitting at the counter and get up to refresh my coffee cup only to turn around and find that she has moved from the chair next to mine into my chair.
It didn’t take her long to figure out that when I say “My Chair” she better move fast or get sat on.
I’m now trying to teach her that when I say “Go to your room” that she needs to get into her back bedroom sanctuary. She goes there when my daughter comes over with her dogs. Kida hasn’t quite convinced the pit bull that she isn’t a chew toy, but she’s working on it.
Huh. Mine just looks at me as if to say, “Well? I’m not leaving until you make me get off. Now we shall see.”
I just pick her up and put her into my lap as I reclaim my rightful place. Nice as I am, she still makes querulous little pro forma bitching noises about it, the wretch.
Huh. Mine just looks at me as if to say, “Well? I’m not leaving until you make me get off. Now we shall see.”
Yeah she used to do that to me also. I trying pushing her to the side (got the scars to prove that she didn’t accept that), tipping her out of the chair (only to have her jump back up as soon as it was upright) and finally just started sitting back down while saying “my chair” at the same time.
I learned a long time ago to not pick up Kida unless she has indicated that she wants to be picked up. And even trying to figure that out can be touch and go. This cat will literally be rubbing your ankles and purring one second and then sinking all claws and teeth into your calf the next.
We had a grey tabby who used to claim my husbands bedroom chair as his own–would sit on the floor and look terribly annoyed whenever hubby would sit in it!
As for training cats, it can actually be done pretty easily when they are young. When we took in a badly neglected kitten (so starved you could feel every vertebrae when you stroked it’s back, and if it drank cold milk it guzzled it–then shivered for 15 minutes) our daughter immediately claimed it as her ‘baby’. She was told that she had to teach it manners, including not to get into people food ( a tough trick with an animal that had been starved). She would put it in her lap at every meal, and if it raised it’s head up to sniff at her plate, Rosie would tap it lightly on the nose and it would duck back under the table.
(Rose couldn’t properly pronounce the cat word ah-rowr (‘where are you’)…she would say Meow-wow when she wanted Minnie to come to her. One night the kitten was at the window wanting in, and when she saw me look at her cried Meow-wow-wow just like Rose!)
Yes, cats are weird…but in a strangely wonderful way.
Has she been reading “The Cat Who…” series?
Oh, they do know. My sister had a cat that was the spawn of the devil (I’m sure of it, so don’t ask). That thing KNEW when I was in the kitchen no matter where it was in the house. As soon as I was in there, it would make a beeline to the living room, take a running leap, land right in the fake tree and tip it over. It never failed. I would chase the stupid thing out of the living room, and as soon as I was in the kitchen again, it would do it again. We did this for hours a day. Evil cat. Making me run around like that. Eeeeeevil. 
Please display prominently
Cats of the world Unite!
2007 is your year.
Send your silly human’s, cash, stocks and shares to:-me, P,M first
Oh! The darling stories I could share about my budgerigars . . .
Ooh. Budgies. Fresh treats on the wing. 
But yeah, I’ve had some as pets. They’re cute little clowns.
So the story goes that when the first English explorer asked a native Australian what the little birds were called, he was told “budgerigar,” which meant something like “tasty snack.”
They’re really excellent for making pleasing environmental sound-effects – now that I’ve four of them, the burbling and chittering never stops. They even mutter softly at night. It’s very soothing.
Oh, dear. That’s not a good sign. I’m afraid budgies are, in fact, nasty, mean-spirited little bastards and if you knew the things that they’re saying about you I’m afraid it’d bleach your fleece! 
What ever you do, avoid flushing them down the loo. They breed in the sewers. This was done unwittingly in England a few years back and resulted in great, evil-smelling flocks of huge, soiled budgies flying out of people’s lavatories, infringing their personal freedom! 
djm