another kitty problem

We have our new baby boy kitten Tut, he's just about 4 months, and he is getting up on the kitchen counter and tonight he ate some butter... we got out the trusty rolled up newspaper and waited for him to go up on the counter to forage some more and bashed him down. Seemed to work as he made tracks to the basement.

The problem is my 2 year old female cats, who were trained by a house-sitter with a rolled-up newspaper while we were on a 3 week mission trip to Haiti! We haven't had to use one of these in a long time, since the girls are really very good girls.

Now that the instrument of punishment has resurfaced in our home the girls are angry and stressed and very unhappy kitties. :(

Does aluminum foil on the counters work? How do you train a kitten to stay off of things he should not be on without a basher? The can of pennies thing does NOT work, he tries to play with the can, LOL.

I haven't been successful at this my entire life, even our good girls still occasionally forage on the counters when they think we are not looking, but this little guy is BOLD, man... and he is getting into stuff that could make him sick. And it breaks my heart to hit him, scare him or what have you, he is such a sunny little guy and so full of love and trust and the girls were just getting to tolerate and even like/play with him, I'm really bummed about this, I want peace in my home!

Help!!!!

Thanks,
Janie


This message was edited Monday, Oct 7th 12:19 AM