What a mat settle actually asks of your cat
Settling on a mat during dinner is not one behaviour but a chain: go to the mat, lie down on it, and stay relaxed there while interesting food smells, movement, and conversation happen nearby. Cats learn chains best one link at a time, so the training begins far from the table, at a quiet hour, with no meal in progress. Expecting her to perform the finished behaviour at a lively dinner before she has practised the pieces is how mat training usually fails.
Choose a mat that is hers alone — a flat, washable pad with a texture she likes, used only for this job — so its smell and feel become a cue in themselves. Place it where she can see the family but is not in the traffic path to the kitchen, because being stepped around repeatedly will break any cat's settle.
Build value in the mat away from mealtimes
Start by rewarding any interaction with the mat in a calm room: a treat for stepping on it, more for standing on it, then a small shower of treats scattered on it for lying down. Keep sessions to a minute or two and let her leave whenever she wants; the mat must read as a place good things happen, never as a trap. Practise daily until she heads to the mat eagerly when it appears and lies down in anticipation.
Transfer the routine to real dinners in stages
For the first real dinners, set the mat down before the family sits, run one minute of the familiar rewarded settle, and let that predictability carry into the meal. Reward her at intervals during the first courses, using something she can eat on the mat without leaving it, such as a lickable treat spread thinly on a small plate placed on the mat, which occupies her through the busiest serving moments.
Ignore begging at the table completely — no scraps, no eye-contact negotiations, no pushing her down repeatedly, which is still attention. If she leaves the mat and pesters, wait her out; when she returns to the mat on her own, that choice gets rewarded. Most cats need several dinners of this pattern before the mat becomes their default dinner station, and a settle that lasts a whole relaxed meal may take a few weeks to build.
Troubleshoot the common sticking points
If she settles beautifully in practice but not at dinner, the gap between training and reality is too large: practise next with a family snack at the table rather than a full meal, and raise the reward value, since dinner smells are strong competition. If she loves the mat but fidgets after ten minutes, her settle stamina is simply still short — shorten the expectation, release her with a cue before she breaks, and rebuild the duration more slowly.
Then add duration gradually, rewarding at lengthening intervals while she stays settled, and add mild distractions in stages — people walking past, plates being carried — raising the reward rate as difficulty rises. A pre-dinner play session also helps her settle.
Keep the whole family's version of the routine identical
Mat training unravels when one diner feeds her from the table, another rewards her on the mat, and a third keeps moving the mat. Agree the mat's dinner position, the release cue, and the no-scraps rule once, and hold them for every meal including casual ones. For relatives you invite, her profile is reachable in KinsLe through Family Sharing.