Dogs can easily be trained to stay out of the kitchen; but when a Russian exchange student teaches them to come into the kitchen, stand directly at the pantry door, and whine for treats (...for example), your training is basically permanently undone. Cats spare you this heartache by simply being untrainable. If you can't make your cat stay off the furniture--and you don't have any of Elizabeth Paige Smith's other cat-specific constructs--the Silhouette cushion makes a great, comfy protector for the upholstery. Note the similarity between the cushion's cat-face shape and a heart shape. Not, we think, an accident.