How do you keep them off?
Clutter? I don’t know they just rarely ever try to get up there. We did give them their own table that we very occasionally use and they seem satisfied with that.
We don’t allow either (adopted during pandemic) cat on kitchen counters, kitchen table or dining room table. Hygiene issue.
Cat 1: Seemed to already know this rule, maybe learned in a past life?
Cat 2: Didn’t know the rule immediately, learned quickly at our house. For that cat, we did the aluminum foil trick. You place foil shiny side up on all counters and if the cat jumps up they get freaked out and jump down immediately. It took a few days (less than a week) of foil counters for her to learn the lesson.
We also have relatively little scratching on furniture. We followed Cat Daddy’s advice to get scratchers and cat trees and place them right next to sofas/sofa arms so the cats can scent soak the scratchers and feel those are close enough to the sofas so they don’t need to do that with the sofa arms.
P.S. Each of our cats has a definite preference for type of scratcher. One loves the vertical scratchers that are integrated into cat trees, the other likes horizontal scratcher. We keep both types to satisfy each cat.
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Didn’t scare our kitty in the least. We also tried contact paper upside down sticky side up. That didn’t help either.
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My cats will scratch the scratchers, but they will also scratch whatever is right next to the scratcher. I never realized how well I raised my cats - better than I raised my kids! - until I got cats raised by someone else. (Oh, I know. I’m not that awesome. They’re cats. I actually got lucky before & my luck ran out.)
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Mine are like that, too. They love the scratcher that’s RIGHT NEXT to the couch that they also love to scratch.
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You’ve got those tricksy kind of kitties. 
Do you feed the cats in the kitchen? If you do, you can always remove their food/water from the kitchen and serve it elsewhere. That might help a bit. Or they might just be incorrigible. At least they are super cute?
The car is darling (see my avatar). But his first 1 1/2 years, he was a kitty in a rural village in Africa. His arrival here came with some wild issues.
He is really a great cat.
We have found success putting clear packing tape on the back corners of furniture. That keeps him from scratching. He really likes those corrugated cardboard scratching pads!
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He is really good looking. That’s how they get us. 
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My pets are allowed on the upholstery. They’re allowed on the bed, but generally won’t stay at night if there are 2 hoomans sleeping. But if either DH or I are alone, they’ll stay the night; otherwise, they usually all sleep in the dog’s bed, despite having perfectly fine cat beds 
The cats aren’t allowed on tables or counters, but they also have never shown interest in those. Fortunately, other when they were very young, they never showed interest in scratching the furniture, and even in their youth, they only scratched the dust cover. Fortunately, some “guidance” got them to use the scratchers exclusively.
We do have a bookcase that the cats have claimed the lowest cube as their own. Since they are so good otherwise, that wasn’t a fight I wished to start.
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Growing up we had small dogs, and they were allowed on the furniture. When (as an adult) I adopted a 15-month old mutt who was about 55 pounds (and ended up around 80), I was living in a small space and she was not allowed on the furniture (I could foresee issues when 2 hoomans would be occupying the bed down the road and didn’t want there to be issues). As she was not a super young puppy, she seemed grateful for love, attention, and being adopted and didn’t push the issue.
After she passed away we got a pandemic puppy, and the foster parents had allowed the puppy on the furniture. But we tried to have puppy not on the furniture. Sometime between year 1-2 puppy would jump on the couch while we weren’t in the room and then slink down when I would come in. Finally, we pretty much just gave up and the dog is allowed on all the couches. As he still likes to get into things (half Dalmation…even though he’s 3 there’s more energy & mischief than one might imagine), he’s actually not allowed in the bedrooms: ours because that’s where his toys/bones that he has not yet been given are kept (and he knows it) and the kid’s because that room is a mess more often than not and things would get destroyed.
Pandemic puppy did do a number on the couch in our living room, but it was old and in need of replacement. The replacement hasn’t arrived yet, but hopefully the “let’s tear holes in the upholstery” phase is over.
My D & SIL have a Bernedoodle, and they weren’t going to allow her on the furniture or the bed. They didn’t … at first. Eventually, she was allowed on the bed, then the furniture. She’s really good, and she hasn’t ruined anything.
Our dog is about 30 pounds. He is allowed on the furniture but I do keep a Pendleton Sherpa blanket on each couch on one side of the piece and that is where he always chills. Dude also loves to put his head on our pillows like a human. When people come over I remove the blankets. Also wash them frequently . He’s a shedder so the blanket helps.
He will bring his toys to our bed and plays with them during the day but at night prefers his own bed in our room. Only comes on the bed if there is a storm or fireworks or if we start talking in the morning.
I swore I’d never let a dog on my bed but…it’s ok now and then. Especially since we got a king
We’ve had two beagles. First one slept at the foot of our bed. Second one sleeps in a crate. She was a rescue and spent a lot of time in a crate before we adopted her. She likes the “den” aspect of the crate, and it makes things easier for us when contractors come, or when we’re going somewhere in the car with her. (She has escaped from the car before, so she needs to be safely contained.) Every once in a while she’ll come up on the bed (we taught her that she has to be invited, so there’s a word for that), but I move around too much for her to stay long.
Neither has ever chewed on furniture or wood trim, chairs, etc. First beagle had awful separation anxiety and would make ‘political statements’ on the family room rug. My sister pulled the rug, leveled the floor and laid LVP, and the problem stopped. Carpet feels a lot like grass, I guess.
Both claimed our furniture as personal thrones. They don’t like the recliners because they rock, but sofas and an overstuffed seat are very popular. I got a couple sofa covers from Amazon and my sister made us some tied fleece blankets, so the furniture is kind of covered, and I throw covers/blankets in the wash regularly. The furniture dates back to 1986, so it is plenty worn already. I’m just trying to keep it from smelling like beagle.
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Just took this pic. Ironically, the plastic spiky things in the foreground are to keep animals off the furniture, lol. We just washed the couch cover, so had them on the couch while it was “naked”. The pic of his highness (behind him) is going up on the wall sooner or later.
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I have these spikey things in black color to keep the “downstairs cats” from going upstairs to harass the “upstairs cats.” (Catsitting kids’ cats. Sigh. Her little kitty ferociously attacks our giant tabby… the tabby usually wins because he is three times her size! Hence the spatial separation 
). When the visitor cats depart, the spikeys will be placed around my tulips to keeps bunnies out.
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Having her in the crate in the car is a great idea. For other folks who have a dog who doesn’t do well in crates one thing we learned when adopting our rescue dog was you can loop the leash through the seat belt and latch it. Car harnesses are great too but looping the leash through the seat belt is a no extra cost way to keep them secured to the car. Whatever you do always make sure your dog is fastened into the car. A friend is heavily immersed in the lost dog rescue world and dogs jumping out of cars when the driver stops is one big way that they get lost. They are also often lost in wrecks.
@LeastComplicated, do you know the brand of couch covers you’re using? The color looks like it would blend really well with the new couch we have on order.
I’m a believer in this. Unfortunately, my current dog figured out how to unfasten the seat belt within one of the first couple times riding in the car. The first time it happened I thought I must not have clicked the seatbelt in properly. So I stopped the car and rebuckled him in. About 30 seconds after I got back in, “Click” and he was unbuckled again! I’ve tried a few more times, but now I’ve just given up. My dog is truly too smart for his own good (and I can’t fit a crate big enough for him in my car).
You might want to get a tether for the child seat latch anchors then. I think they are as cheap as $15.
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I bought from Temu as I’ve bought several covers that I wasn’t happy with so I cheaped out with these. I will say that they don’t stay in place very well, at least on my couch which has pretty smooth fabric so the grabby rubber dots on the backing aren’t that effective.
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