Stop Your Cat From Scratching Furniture

Cats are known for scratching and clawing. This is a natural behavior that you can control with a little training. Fist you need to know the reasons behind the clawing. Cats claw mainly to mark their territory and to exercise and stretch. You will not be able to completely stop your cat from clawing and scratching things, but you can control what the cat scratches.

Step one is to give your cat an alternative to clawing your furniture. Scratching posts and toys will give the cat an expectable outlet for their natural behavior. A scratching post can be inexpensively built out of a couple pieces of wood nailed together and then covered with carpet. The trick is to train the cat as soon as you get them before they start on the furniture.

Scratching posts are perfectly designed to fulfill the cats scratching needs, they are usually covered with carpet and cats love them. Place the scratching post near where the cat eats or where he likes to sleep because the cat will want to establish these areas as their own personal territory. Hopefully the cat will pick the scratching post instead of the furniture and no further training will be necessary.

When your cat does pick a piece of furniture to scratch what you need to do is change his mind and redirect his attention to the scratching post. First try to pick the cat up when you find him clawing the furniture and put him down at his scratching post. The next thing to try is to temporarily cover what the cat wants to scratch so the post is more desirable. If all else fails chaise the cat away with a firm "no" or "bad cat", however be sure not to be overly aggressive as you do not want your cat to be afraid of you. Extreme measures such as spraying the cat with water or putting chemical deterrents on the furniture being scratched is usually a short cut that does not work in the long run because the point of the training should be to show the cat where he can scratch not to just scare or punish him.

Declawing your cat is not a good solution to a clawing problem. Declawing is painful for your pet. Not only is the claw removed but part of the toe as well. If you think declawing is your only alternative you should consider that owning a cat is not for you and give the cat to someone that has the time to train the cat so that both the cat and the owner can be happy.

Understanding your cat's behavior will help you have a positive experience with your pet. It has been my experience that cats are smart and learn fast so very little effort on your part will be needed and the cat will stop its bad behavior in a few days or so. If you can meet the needs of the cat you will have a happy cat that will give you what you need.

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Jeff Mcclure is a featured author at JimsPets.com and you can read more of his articles at JimsPets.com

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