Lost a star for me because I only received 7 in what should have been a pack of 8, but I only needed 6 so it is what it is. Also felt a lot cheaper than what I expected for the price, but when you have multiple cats who started using the basement couch as a litter box, you gotta do what you must. I feel like they are going to do the trick, but I will update if they don’t! Feeling optimistic reading other reviews.

So you’ve got cats and dogs. Animals aren’t stupid, so they can figure this out. But in the grand scheme of things, if you’re smarter, they work >perfect<.

The material is basically vacuum-form plastic used in molding and model making (like on mythbusters). It’s a hard polymer, but basically a little thicker than your basic plastic frustration packaging. The spikes are molded little cones about 3/4″ tall, but not sharp (See Pic). Walk on them in your bare feet, you’ll feel it, and just like your pet, it’s uncomfortable to your pads. Put on shoes, and all you accomplish is crushing them flat and making them unusable.

Arrives in 8 sheets interlocked/stacked in a slim box the size of the sheets, with a bag of small plastic connectors to make a grid from the pre-punched holes in each piece.

So the basic plan – Place sheets in the walk path of your favorite lovable sneaky mis-behaving cat/dog. They will slide, and can be moved by your pet, so use common sense (unlike some reviews?)…consider this to be something like the size of a file folder with plastic spikes-easily moved and not heavy (2.35 oz each) if you just put it down. Again, these are not ‘repellent sheets’ based on the horror your pet may consider if looking at them alone…they have to get on them for them to work…on them. The functional part of these is about 15″ x 11″, so if your dog is 12″ x 36″, use math…the odds of a three foot dog striding over the middle of a 15″ deep 11″ wide something is pretty slim. You’d need about 4-5 of them deep for the dog to get the message when he finds himself mostly involved in feeling the spikes…and then turn around…if they aren’t anchored, the act of turning around will just scatter them, and the path will be clear…don’t blame the product…they aren’t 2 lb mats. secure them on a towel or something to increase the friction of them moving.

We used these amply around our Christmas tree to keep Lucy (pictured) off the tree. She was basically using it as her personal Swiss Family Robinson hide out.

We placed the sheets 2 deep (ahh..the key) so she couldn’t just jump over them, push them around or move them out of the way. She encounters them, starts to wade in, and turns around. We anchor them with the tree skirt, and it’s fixed the problem completely.

We also use them on our counter at night, on either side of the cooktop she uses as a bridge to get to the other side, make them wide side in that area, and she moves on.

Easy fix? Buy some rug no-slip (Dollar Store item) – You can use sticky tape, but it’s just simpler to put something heavy on one corner to weigh them down. If you place them two deep, they can step on the first one, but realize hoping over it won’t work since there is another just ahead. It seems some of the reviews are lost on this concept…you have to adapt them to each situation. If you want a pet away from a hallway, simply putting something 8-11″ wide expecting to ‘repel’ your pet a the mere thought of stepping on these little cones of frustration, it’s not gonna work. Put them 2-3 deep, they have to venture in and they lose interest in the idea of going in that direction.

If you use the connectors, make a grid of something like 3×3 or so to protect a 36″ hallway…it makes it harder for them to move or shuffle to the side when it’s all connected together. We use them when we have company to keep the cats on one side of the house without locking them in.

This is the most humane version of ‘repellent’ we’ve found, the easiest to use and the cleanest solution. Over time they can figure it out, but you just have to keep adding depth or move them around to the best place to block off their path…they don’t like the feeling on their feet…not like thumbtacks, more like a rocky path without shoes on.

My only gripe is the cost. 8 sheets was $23+ tax/shipped. These are .50 per sheet items at best. A price of $10 per pack would be more acceptable.

Good luck.

Cats love the cloth top of my jeep but I put a line of these to block hood access and they HATE them

Works well for training cats to stay off some counters. But as we all know they will find a way around it after a while. Still use them on half of my counters. Clever idea.

If you prefer to have your fur babies learn by doing then this is an excellent tool! We just put them up on shelves/high places that we don’t want them to be on. My cats are smart asses and only jump on places they know they shouldn’t when we are asleep, so it’s pretty funny to hear a crash at night when one of them jumps up only to meet the spikes and freak out and jump down. 😂😂 We will leave them up for a few months until we know they’re not tempted to jump up anymore. It’s cool because they’re clear and so you don’t really see them. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve accidentally left a spike on the floor and walked on it and almost died.