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All cat house owners love their cats, however one factor that isn’t fairly as endearing is how they scratch up the furnishings. It’s frequent for cats to scratch at family objects, together with couches, doorways, rugs, beds – the record goes on. You’ve most likely already puzzled why your cat appears to like etching their little artworks onto your furnishings.
Don’t fear, there’s no malice concerned, though people like to assign human logic to animal behaviours. By understanding the reasoning behind the scratching, you may start to grasp preserve your cats from scratching the furnishings.
Why Do Cats Scratch?
Scratching and clawing at objects is solely one thing that every one cats do. In case you watch massive cats similar to lions, tigers, and jaguars, in addition they like to scratch. They simply don’t do it on family furnishings however on bushes. Cats scratch to:
- Maintain their claws wholesome – Cat claws are made out of the identical materials as our fingernails, besides theirs peels away in layers. scratching session is a approach for the cat to take away the broken outer layer and sharpen the claw.
- Mark their territory – Like many different predators, cats are territorial by nature. Scratching is a approach for them to mark their territory, each visually and by scent. At any time when your cat scratches at an object, the scent glands of their paw pads launch pheromones. These pheromones warn different animals that they’re within the cat’s house turf.
- Stretch their our bodies – Any cat proprietor is aware of that cats love stretching. Most scratching periods are accompanied by an excellent stretch. Many cats will scratch whereas stretching, reaching far above or in entrance of themselves. Consider it as a human stretching whereas digging their toes into the carpet.
- Relieve boredom – Scratching is an effective approach of releasing extra bodily or emotional power. Feminine cats in warmth may be stressed, and can are likely to climb and scratch at issues.
How Do You Maintain Your Cat From Scratching Furnishings?
We’ve obtained a few suggestions that, when utilized in mixture, will assist with scratching behaviours.
1. Maintain your cat’s nails trimmed
Setting an everyday nail-trimming schedule is an effective way to maintain your cat’s scratching behaviour underneath management. Most cats will begin scratching at round eight weeks outdated, so beginning younger is a good suggestion. It could be more difficult to get mature cats to take a seat nonetheless as you clip their nails, so a visit to the groomer could assist get them used to it. As soon as they’re extra snug, you may try to do it your self. A nail trim each two to a few weeks works for many cat house owners.
2. Make the furnishings much less interesting
There are a few strategies to make your furnishings a less-than-ideal place on your cats to scratch:
- Apply cat scratch tape – You should use both cat scratch tape or double-sided tape. Most cats discover sticky surfaces annoying, so it’s an excellent deterrent to scratching. Nevertheless, this resolution is probably not viable for surfaces that aren’t easy, similar to couches and different upholstered furnishings.
- Apply a cat scratch spray – There are each industrial and selfmade variations of cat scratch spray. Most are supposed to make the cat assume that they’ve already put their scent on the article that’s been sprayed. This technique takes a while to be efficient, as you’ll have to make use of the spray each day till the cat stops scratching.
- Apply vinyl panelling – That is the drastic choice for cats that merely gained’t cease scratching. Vinyl panels are not a deterrent, they’re safety on your furnishings. Panels of assorted sizes can be found, and most screw on to your furnishings.
3. Present scratching posts
Most cats will scratch objects in the event that they’re appropriate for scratching. You possibly can place scratching posts scattered round the home close to furnishings they normally scratch. Be aware of the varieties of surfaces that your cat enjoys scratching. Scratching posts are made of assorted supplies, and it ought to be doable to seek out some that match your cat’s most popular sort of furnishings.
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Generally it takes a bit coaxing to get your cat to make use of the scratching publish as a substitute of the furnishings. Constructive reinforcement is an effective technique to get them to make use of the publish – each time they take note of the publish as a substitute of the furnishings, give them reward and a reward.
One other technique is to sprinkle some catnip round and on the publish itself. Some cat house owners have had success with enjoying with a wand toy close to the publish, then directing the cat’s consideration to the publish as soon as they’ve began chasing the wand toy.
Let Your Cat Be A Cat
Let’s keep in mind that scratching is a pure exercise for cats. Most cats might want to scratch a minimum of among the time – so as a substitute of trying to remove the behaviour utterly, it’s finest to direct it to things which can be designed to be scratched similar to cat furnishings and scratchers. In case your cat has moved on from furnishings to the partitions, we now have an article on cease cats from scratching partitions as nicely.
Writer:
Elsa Smith
