cat crisis

[Phoenix]

Does anyone have any tips on how to get a cat to stop scratching the furniture!

[Laiste]

Buy a cat scratcher covered in carpet, use a spray bottle filled with water to spray the cat a little when they scratch on the furniture. You can also try a can filled with a few coins to scare the cat away. All of these worked with my cat...especially the water when he was a kitten!

[shnen]

I bought one of those mats for wiping your shoes on, sorta like hard grass type thing, they are brown - great for cats to scratch.. and I put cat nip on it to get them to use it. I had to do it a few times to show them that's what it was for, and when they were scratching i'd pick them up and put them n the mat and try to work with them to get tohem to scratch it...
really worked good. :)

[PeleRising]

We made a cat tree for our kittens. Using some wood 4x4's... sisal to cover the wood... and platforms that we covered in carpet... they absolutely loved it and it kept their little claws out of the furniture. the water in the spray bottle works well ... and just distracting them with yarn and toys is good too.

[Rubi Waters]

cats hate citrus if the furniture can handle it spray the part they scratch with lemon pledge or that orange cleaner stuff.

[Loon]

Originally posted by Rubi Waters
cats hate citrus if the furniture can handle it spray the part they scratch with lemon pledge or that orange cleaner stuff.

I've never heard that before; I should try it. My cats know better, but they still scratch on the furniture and carpet.

[Danustouch]

My cats don't scratch the furniture often, and when they do, it's usually by accident. They hook their claws in to stretch, and when they lower themselves to do so, it leaves a tear in the furniture. :(

The way we got them to stop doing it on a regular basis, was providing a scratching post for them..but i've heard it even works better if you have several of them, in various rooms of the house.

They also sell a spray at pet stores, called feliway, or something like that, that you can spray the area around the furniture with, to repel them.

Other than that..yeah..i agree..we've found the water bottle to be a very useful tool to tell our cats what to do and what not to do :)

[Jeleia]

We have a cat tree as well. If we spot them scatching, we'll move them to the cat tree. They're learning :)

But I have a question (not meaning to change the subject....) but one of my cats, like to beat on other cats. (He's put to in the hospital.) :( so we stopped letting him out, but now with summer coming, all he wants to do is go out. Any suggestions?! He's just so mean!

But anyways, back on topic :)

[Danustouch]

Is he neutered?

The biggest reason male cats fight, is over territory. Unfortunately, if he is not neutered, this territoriality will be far more noticeable, and annoying than a neutered cats would be. First of all, un neutered cats tend to stray farther from home, looking for female cats in heat, or to increase their territory. Secondly, neutered cat's won't be so insistant to go out doors.

If your cat is not neutered, chances are nothing can be done to control his behavior until you do have him fixed.

After that, If the behavior doesn't change, talk to your vet. But I'm pretty sure he'll just advise you to keep the cat indoors..no matter what.

And please, make sure he's up to date on his Rabies, and Distemper shots.

[PeleRising]

We have 4 kitties... 3 are males and 1 is a female. all are neutered except the youngest and he is gonna be fixed in 2 months. We have found that our male kitties tussle and fight for dominance of the others. They finally settled who was the boss then we got the new kitten. He is gonna give them a run for their money as he is already trying to take over.... so with a cat tree and lots of toys and lots of equal attention we get them to keep the fighting and the scratching of the furniture to a minimum...

as an aside.... the males get to be boss... till our little female gets pissed.... then the rest run and hide.... lol

[Semele]

Originally posted by Phoenix
Does anyone have any tips on how to get a cat to stop scratching the furniture!

Declaw!!!

Hope I have not offended anyone, I do have two cats...soon to be three and we have some nice furniture that doesn't need to be scratched up. When we first got married we had brand new black leather furniture that was destroyed before we even had it paid off. Also we have an almost six (saturday) year old and a baby on the way. While I teach my son to be gentle with animals..he can still at times love a little too much. I see nothing wrong with getting cats declawed if they are staying indoors. Our old man, Ozzy, has back claws but he chews them down to nothing.

One more thing to point out is that if any of our cats had claws, Mol's dog wouldn't have any eyes left. She doesn't hurt the cats...poor thing, they just wont play with her and they get a little testy when she keeps trying.

[WandererInGray]

A caution about using Pledge or the orange cleaner on furniture!
It can stain, especially on lighter fabrics.
You're better off grinding up orange peel and adding a little orange oil and testing that on a small part of your furniture.
Cahyenne pepper is suppose to work really well too.

My personal opinion on declawing. I couldn't ever do it. It brings to my mind images of someone taking my fingers off at the second knuckle. As a pet owner I feel like I have a responsibility to my pets and not my furniture. I try to teach them not to scratch on things, but if they do....well...*shrugs*...it's only stuff and they're just acting naturally.
There are a ton of other, less painful and debilitating options than declawing.

Regular clipping of your cats nails is also something I highly encourage. It keeps them at a short, managable length to guard against unintentional wounds and providing them with a good scratching post is an absolute must. If they don't have anything else to use, they'll go for the furniture, no matter what you do.

[PeleRising]

In the past... we have gotten our kitties declawed. We were living in rental places... and well the first kitty started shredding the carpet. We didnt want to have to find him a new home.. and scratching posts didnt work with him. When we bought our first home... and subsequently got 2 new kitties.... our older cat was getting scratched, when the male kitten would attack him. We chose to get the 2 of them declawed... but i swore i would never do it again. One of the kittens got an infection... and you could tell that it hurt. I felt so bad!!!! With the new kitten... we are gonna have the Vet teach us to trim his claws so he cant hurt the other 3 too bad, while making sure that he has his scratching posts... the cat tree and lots of toys. Hopefully that will work.

We always used a sour apple spray on the furniture... you can get it at pets stores... ( we used it for our dog ) not sure if it would work with cats.

[Jeleia]

Danustouch ~ Thanks , But he is neutered. I guess we'll have to keep him indoors. He just sits at the door and meows. He sounds so sad.

[Lauralu]

Me and my mom told ourselves we would never declaw our cats. Unfortunately we had to declaw our young cat, Molly, b/c she was really hurting our resuced cat who had already been declawed when we got him. When we went to the vet she told us about these claw covers. they slip over the claw and they tend not to wear down for a while (unless the cat is extremely active, like Molly). Alas, they were a bit too expensive for us, but it is still an alternative if anyone wants to put out a little bit extra money to save their furniture and carpet. :)