How to Stop Cat Scratching Damage
2008-08-26

How to Stop Cat Scratching Damage Even if you love your cat to pieces, it can be frustrating to deal with a feline who insists on using your couch as his personal scratching post. If you have babies or small children, you may be afraid that your cat will scratch them. Scratching (also known as stropping) is a normal behavior in cats. Unfortunately some cats can cause countless headaches for their owners by scratching household furnishings and even children, which leads to damage. How to change such a bad little kitty to a pretty one? Wish this passage will help you in some way. Scratching can’t be stopped; it is a natural behavior for cats. This isn't exactly a revelation, since you probably have the evidence everywhere--in the tattered corners of your sofa, the shredded drapes, and your frayed nerves. It’s impossible to stop a cat scratching. What you can do is stop her from scratching those items you value and want to keep in their relatively pristine state. As the old saying goes: never try to teach a pig to sing; it frustrates you and annoys the pig. Translate this bit of wisdom to your dealings with cats and you'll avoid a good deal of futility and frustration. Getting a dog to stop something she enjoys is just about as difficult. Therefore you have to think smart and re-channel her desires. Fill its desire More to the point, why do they scratch your prized possessions? Understanding your cat's need to scratch is more than just an act of charitably on your part. It's the key to channeling Kitty's efforts to more acceptable areas. It scratches to make their territory, exercise and sheer pleasure. To stop your pet scratching your furniture, you should fill him desire first. Buy her the softest, prettiest and most luxurious scratching post you can find. You take it home and your feline friend gives you a blank stare and walks away. This activates your parental guidance mechanism and you decide to show her how to use the post by taking her front paws and making scratching motions at the post. She of course struggles till she gets free of you and then treats you with utter disdain for the rest of the day. Never make the mistake of trying to "show her how" to scratch anything. You'll only offend her. She knows perfectly well how to do it. She just reserves the right to scratch when and where it suits her. Alternate Solutions • Trim your cat's nails. Though you should never de-claw, you may defray some of your cat's potential for destruction by carefully trimming the razor-sharp tips of her claws. You will find this endeavor more easily accomplished by two people, one to hold Kitty and one to trim her nails. • Consider water sprays (use when your cat starts scratching the furniture), this may work but it may just stop your cat scratching when you are around. • Try placing orange peel around the location. Many cats find the citrus smell extremely unpleasant. • If you see your cat making a beeline for a favorite piece of furniture to scratch on, gently pick up the cat & move it over to the scratching post. If the cat uses it heap plenty of praise on your cat. Cats respond far better to positive behavior than negative behavior from their owners. • Cutting your cat's claws regularly will minimize damage caused to your furniture. Attention Don’t punish it. Cats don't understand physical punishment. In addition to it being wrong to hit your cat, punishment simply doesn't work and is likely to make your situation worse. Clever though Kitty is about many things, she won't understand that you're punishing her for scratching the couch. She will only compute that sometimes when you catch her she is treated badly. This may make her insecure and stimulate her to scratch more or develop other undesirable behavior problems. Eventually you will break the trust and security that is the basis for your cat's relationship with you, and you will find it very difficult to catch her for any reason at all. Cats have excellent memories and hold serious grudges. Start them young. If you are starting with a kitten, consider yourself fortunate. It's much easier to initiate good habit patterns than to correct undesirable ones. From the beginning teach your kitten the appropriate place to scratch. Use the methods already described, especially playing around the scratching post to capture her interest. Take advantage of your kitten's desire to play and attach toys to the post. She will soon "dig in" to catch her toy and discover how good it feels to scratch this surface. Do not take her paws and make her scratch the post. This is a major turn-off and will only inspire a bratty "you can't make me" attitude. Even at an early age, cats refuse to be coerced into doing what they don't want to do. If she starts to scratch an inappropriate object, immediately place her in front of her scratching post and begin petting her. Some cats will begin kneading when petted, thus digging their claws into the desired surface and establishing this as a fine place to scratch. Cats are creatures of habit. Start them off with good ones.