Addiction to LOLcats Raises Many Questions

Does everybody in the world let their cats get on their tables and countertops? I'm beginning to wonder.

I don't have high standards. But feet that have been in the litter box do not belong on the table or the kitchen counter. I don't care how cute those feet are. Keep them away from my food!

Yet, when Lily and I feed our LOLcat addiction by checking in with icanhascheezburger (and we do LOL at the cats, sometimes even ROFL at the cats -- some of you Internets are really funny), I'm beginning to notice a trend.

About half of those cats are on some kind of human eating surface. That would be a table or countertop. I love cats. I also love cat-hair-free food.

moar funny pictures

I disapprove. At least in my house.

I even have an electrified Scat Mat. It's a flat mat that when an animal jumps on the table, they get a shock. This didn't work for Tiger. He just jumped to the part of the table where there was no mat and kept eating. Tiger now lives outside, where I think he is happy snuggling up with Parker, the dog, to sleep and catching wildlife. And he comes inside for supervised visits. We do have an indoor cat, Izzie, who is polite and would never dream of hopping on the table, clawing the furniture (she is not declawed but uses her cardboard clawing thingy we bought her), turning over the trashcan or waking me up to feed her. If her food bowl is empty, she comes to get me instead of turning over the open bag of food next to the bowl. We call her polite, but perhaps she is just stupid.

Here's a photo of Tiger on the outside and Izzie on the inside. She was not fully grown at that time. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Comments

[Angry]

We have a well behaved cat when it comes to food preparation/consuming areas, but we’ve had a dickens of a time training our kids on the protocols and etiquette of those very same areas.

[groovyoldlady]

Our only pets right now are dust bunnies. They don't get to the food on the counters or tables, but any food that hits the floor is definite bunny fodder.

[zoe]

i do find our cats on the table once in a while even though they know better...and they like to get in the kitchen sink. i have to tell my one son constantly not to hold the cat while he is eating...that's just gross.

[Venomous Kate]

Oh, I completely agree. I don't understand how people can think it's cute. These are animals who paw their feces in their litter boxes and, even if they do groom their paws a lot, it's still gross!

I have squirt bottles in every room of the house to spray my cats with when they jump on the counters or tables (or fight with each other, which also drives me nuts).