Our present dog is the only one we have let go on the furniture. My husband loves when he climbs up to get on his lap. The dog is probably 80 lbs and gets comfortable and settles with his head in my husband’s lap. My husband would allow him on the bed but the dog prefers to sleep in his crate.
My youngest lets her dogs in the bed and on the furniture. Her dogs like to lay head on the pillow and under the blankets. One of them likes to get up on the dining chair like he’s eating at the table. I find it a bit much but it’s not my house.
My S covers his kitchen countertops with black spiky things to keep his cat off the counters. They work great.
Before my cat was diabetic, she was “perfect” (well except the couch scratching posts) and very well behaved. She would jump on the counter on the way to above the fridge or top of the cabinets but never hung out on them or the tables.
Since she’s been diabetic, we’ve tried lots of methods to keep her off the counters/table, and we’ve pretty much given up. We live with a very large cutting board over our sink, because she will lick the sink and drain thing for food. We tried putting aluminum foil on the counters and stove, cookie sheets, and I don’t remember what else. Now if we cook something on the stove we either put a cover on it, or lock her up until it’s cool.
She’s very frustrating, but she’s 14 and we’ve had her since she was a baby. Occasionally she won’t do well for a couple of days (she may have some kitty dementia in addition to diabetes) and we will talk about putting her down, but then she turns back into her cranky self.
When she goes, we will consider new furniture, but not until then.
Our dogs would never be allowed on the furniture. They know their place, we would never allow them on a chair, or the sofa or our bed. . . .
We learned the hard way that Beagle #2 needs to wear her leash even if she’s in the crate in the car. We need a ‘handle’ that we can grab or step on if she tries to slip past us. Harnesses don’t fit her well. She’s big chested and small waisted. Managed to chew through one and wiggle out of two others shortly after we adopted her.
Re: furniture “kind of” covered…she takes the cover and makes it a nest.
I am so glad I’m not alone in covering up my nice furniture!
She has no restrictions and claimed the couch as her own right after we adopted her. She’s 12, so she can do whatever she wants
My husband has a t-shirt that says, “I work hard to be able to afford the furniture my cats sit on.” Or something like that.
Here is a prime example: a Stressle$$$ chair.
We’ve created a ‘chair cave’ on one of our chairs like that. Kitty loves a blanket on the seat of the chair and then another blanket draped over the chair and the ottoman to give her privacy and darkness round the clock.
We have two of those chairs…only one is available for hoomans.
When we got our puppy ( now big sheddy dog) 8 years ago I did not want him on the furniture so I bought laundry baskets from the dollar store and put those on couches, chairs. That did the trick - took about 6 months of keeping those up everywhere but he has never gone on the furniture. He does jump on our bed once in a while where I keep a blanket for him but doesn’t sleep there at night.
He just has so much hair it’s enough to keep the floors clean! And he’s not a lap dog:)
I have just one word for this: Roomba. Overnight, every night.
This was me dog sitting D2’s dog. Rules, 1) not on the couch, 2) no sleeping in bed.
When grandma is around, anything goes.
I could read this thread of pups (& kitties!) on furniture all day!
The cats are allowed almost anywhere except on the kitchen table or countertops. They are not allowed in the bedroom at night.
@thumper , the best deterrents I’ve found are a water spray bottle and wide double sided sticky tape.
I have a spray bottle with me almost all the time. This doesn’t do anything for the long term. Sticky stuff? Well…if sticky side up contact paper didn’t work, I can’t imagine anything else sticky will.
He is quite the persistent cat!
I have four cats and, interestingly, not one gets on the kitchen counters or table. I have no idea why. We never used a spray bottle; we just took them off as kittens telling them “no.” Evidently they listened.
Our oldest cat sometimes joins us at the table. He carefully keeps his feet planted on a chair and rests his elbows on the table as he leans over to listen to our conversation. He’s very careful not to break the house rules of getting “on” the table.
I really wish I could find the picture of what our youngest dog did to our couch when he was a pup. Let’s just say huge hole and loads of stuffing all over the living room.
We let pups go on couches and beds as they like. They own the house we just take care of them.
Luckily our cat does not scratch anything. I am not sure why but he isn’t a scratcher. He does like to bat the dog in the snoot though.