Invisible line / border

Hi,
I would like to eventually train my dog to stay out of the kitchen preparation area when I am cooking (We have an open plan kitchen/diner) as she likes to be very close and sit on or around my feet and I’m worried that one day I’ll trip over her and spill some boiling water on her or something. However I don’t mind so much if I’m just in there making a cup of tea etc. and obviously don’t mind her wandering in on her own. Is there a way I could indicate that “at this moment in time you’re not allowed in”. I was wondering about putting down a small mat and using that as an indication of a threshold she now can’t cross. But then I’m thinking that she may well just pick up the mat and run off with it and chew it.
She is just a puppy, and obviously this will take time and a lot of patience to train, but in some ways I want to think about it now and maybe make a start because they can still start to learn things even at this age, with a lot of repetition and get into good habits.
The difficulty is the inconsistency of what I’m asking of her. The “sometimes you’re allowed in kitchen and sometimes you’re not” which is why I was wondering about a physical indication (eg a mat) but then I can’t see this working either because she will pick it up.
Maybe there isn’t a solution. It’s just something I’m thinking ahead about. Maybe she might just learn that when I say “out of the kitchen” she has to stay out, but that is harder for her, I think, than having a physical signal she can see that will tell her “now I’m not allowed in the kitchen”. But I can’t think of a physical symbol.
Any ideas of how to achieve this? Or Perhaps I should abandon the idea of training this?

 

Thanks for all your responses about what worked for you. It’s very helpful. I think what I will use is a mat and “out”. I think I’ll use a different mat to the one I use to try to get her to “settle” on in pubs and cafés, because I want her “settle mat” to be a place where she has to stay put on it till I say she can go. So I want to use a different mat for the kitchen border thing because I don’t mind if she gets up off it and walks away as long as she doesn’t walk forward toward me in the kitchen.
I like your idea of it being foldable so I can take it to other places and use it there. That will be very useful for when my elderly in-laws look after her sometimes for us, because I don’t want them tripping over her in the kitchen which they could easily do as their mobility, hearing and eyesight aren’t so great these days. I might use a door mat or some vet bedding so it grips to the floor. I think she might be less likely to run off with it then. Maybe the vet bedding might be more transportable. It’s also a different texture to anything else she has so hopefully she’ll begin to associate it with a no-go border and learn the word “out” as well.
It’s going out take a lot of training! Ugh! I’ll need a lot of patience! Ha ha!

 

Oh that’s a very good idea. Like you say, there may be times I really need to get something in the oven under time pressure and won’t have time and/or patience for dog-training. Can anyone recommend a good one? I have a 102cm wide access from dining area into kitchen. It’s not a proper doorway, wall one side and edge of kitchen cupboards another side. It would need to be easy for me to take up and down (I’m very impractical!) and not fall over if dog pushes against it.