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I decided I liked everyone on the sofa more than off
We might love our pets but that doesn’t mean we want to let them go anywhere they want in the house. For example, both my cat and my dog aren’t allowed upstairs because I’m a light sleeper and they tend to keep me up by making a lot of noise in my bedroom.
Far more common, however, is the practice of keeping your pets off of your furniture. Unless you’re willing to spend either the time or money to properly groom your pet or have a professional do it for you, pets shed all over most types of seating furniture. Untamed claws can scratch fabrics, and I don’t even want to think about grubby little paws getting all over table or counter tops where food is kept.
But how do we keep our pets off of furniture? Sometimes slightly different methods are needed depending on your species of pet, so I’ll start with dogs.
Dogs are easier to train not to go on the sofa, for example. If you never let your dog on the sofa, chances are it never will go on the sofa, especially if it knows it’s not supposed to. What do you do, however, if you’re having problems keeping it off?
Chances are the comfortable seat isn’t the only reason why your dog wants on the couch. It might associate the couch with good things.
Do you occasionally let your pet up on the sofa and give it a lot of attention when it’s there? If you don’t tend to cuddle your pet much when it’s not on the sofa, or if you give it a lot of attention on the sofa that it doesn’t receive elsewhere, then it might come to associate the sofa with these good feelings.
Sometimes dogs also associate being on the furniture with pack-related feelings. Chihiro might not care much for my attention all day long, but if the evening comes and my husband, my cat, and I are all on the couch, all of a sudden she wants in. She wants to be up because everyone else is and she feels left out.
If this is the case with your dog, try giving it a lot of attention while it’s on the floor or in its bed. Praise it when it’s doing nothing but sleeping on its own bed. Make sure it gets time with the whole family while not up on a piece of furniture. If you do this consistently for a few weeks, then you should have less problems with your dog wanting to be up on the furniture.
Cats, however, are much more difficult to keep away from or off of places they want to be. They seem to know when they’re not supposed to do something, but sometimes that will only deter them once they’re caught. The most effective method I’ve found for teaching my cat that he’s not allowed somewhere is to squirt him with water from a spray bottle.
Cole used to spend a lot more time trying to get onto the counter or table before I started using the spray bottle. Now he only tends to go there if he’s chasing a bug out of his reach. I also keep a spray bottle at the top of the stairs and use it on him if he tries to get up them.
After a couple months of this, he doesn’t dash for the stairs the second he finds the gate open, like he used to. I’ve also found the spray bottle effective in keeping the dog from poking her nose up onto the kitchen counters.
It takes some patience, trial, and error, but eventually you can find a way to keep your pets off the furniture.
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