Cat Tips: How To Keep Them Off the Counter, Nix UTIs, and More

Oh, to be a cat and have your owner serve you all day long. Some felines have an attitude that makes it hard to train out bad habits (but we still love them). Others are better behaved, but still have issues — be it difficulty eating due to age or constant bladder problems. No matter where your kitty lies, these cat tips are for you. Find out how to keep your pet off the counter, make things more comfortable during mealtime, and prevent UTIs below.

Keep your cat off the counter with reader suggestions.

How do you keep a cat off the counter? Mittens keeps jumping up on countertops and you wish he would stop! Here, readers share how they hinder these hijinks:

1. Clean counters with a lemon-scented cleanser, says reader Betsy Fagler. Cats hate the citrusy smell, so they’ll steer clear!
2. Tape two balloons to the counter, says Sarah Higgins. As soon as he jumps on the counter, the movement of the balloons will scare him away for good.
3. Place baking sheet pans lengthwise along the counter, with about four inches sticking out over the edge, suggests Roberta Cooper. When your cat jumps up, she’ll tip the pan, sending it clattering to the ground, and she’ll be forced to drop back down to the floor. It won’t take more than a few tries before she avoids the counters altogether.

This makes mealtime easy.

If your senior kitty is circling his food bowl and wandering away before coming back again, the problem could be that it’s hard for him to bend down and eat out of a bowl placed low on the floor. Instead of spending cash on tilted pet bowls at the store, try this simple DIY: Grab two bowls, one larger than the other. Place the larger bowl at an angle resting on the smaller one; add food. Raising food at an angle helps keep Whiskers’ neck in alignment, so he can eat with ease. Tip: You can do the same for his water bowl!

Keep Fluffy UTI-free.

Lately, your kitty has been jumping in and out of the litter box and licking herself a lot down below — two signs of a urinary tract infection (UTI). To help remedy the UTI, dilute 2 cups of apple cider vinegar with 1 cup of water in a bowl, then dip a paper towel in the mix and rub it all over her coat. As she grooms herself, your cat will ingest the apple cider vinegar, which will help make her urine more acidic, reducing infection-related bacteria and allowing the infection to heal naturally. Note: See your vet if there is no improvement after a day.

This article originally appeared in our print magazine, First For Women.