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CAt scratching leather sofa - best deterrent?

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I have 4 indoor cats...infact now 5...all entire and hormonal and I have never had and furniture scratched. I can have 10 kittens racing round too...all with me to 13 weeks old and never had any problems and YES I am mega house proud. I provide scratching posts all over the house and change them often. I use catnip on them to encourage usage and trim all cats and kittens claws often. I discourage any slight sign of potential unwanted scratching with citronella oil diluted in water and white vinegar is also good. Feliway spray is good and I use Feliway diffusers. I provide toys that are changed daily and my house is completely open...all rooms are available for our cats to use. I am also on hand to provide company as and when it is needed. Cats can be and often are quite complicated creatures and are also territorial so alot of thought needs to go into keeping them happy and your home in one piece.

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I have 4 indoor cats...infact now 5...all entire and hormonal and I have never had and furniture scratched. I can have 10 kittens racing round too...all with me to 13 weeks old and never had any problems and YES I am mega house proud. I provide scratching posts all over the house and change them often. I use catnip on them to encourage usage and trim all cats and kittens claws often. I discourage any slight sign of potential unwanted scratching with citronella oil diluted in water and white vinegar is also good. Feliway spray is good and I use Feliway diffusers. I provide toys that are changed daily and my house is completely open...all rooms are available for our cats to use. I am also on hand to provide company as and when it is needed. Cats can be and often are quite complicated creatures and are also territorial so alot of thought needs to go into keeping them happy and your home in one piece.

 

oh great tips, im gona be trying these ones:D

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Binga, i take it you're a breeder? What breed do you have? None of mine that i have currently seem to bother scratching anything other than their posts. Oh, apart from I've recently noticed 1 or 2 of them scratching the bottom of my bed :rolleyes:

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British Shorthairs speed! x

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Having re-read this post there does seem to be a distinction regarding what people expect.....as a pedigree British Shorthair breeder who breeds for quality, type and temperament and trains kittens to scratch posts I have no problems with un-wanted scratching as do my customers. But am I lucky breeding BSH? Are other cats and kittens more prone to scratching where they like? Also other breeds? Perhaps it is easy for me to offer advice when perhaps the problems are more deep rooted. I know that Siamese are not the easiest breed to deal with.

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Having re-read this thread there does seem to be a distinction regarding what people expect.....as a pedigree British Shorthair breeder who breeds for quality, type and temperament and trains kittens to scratch posts I have no problems with un-wanted scratching as do my customers. But am I lucky breeding BSH? Are other cats and kittens more prone to scratching where they like? Also other breeds? Perhaps it is easy for me to offer advice when perhaps the problems are more deep rooted. I know that Siamese are not the easiest breed to deal with.

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I think that British Shorthairs are at the 'sweet and predictable' end of cat behaviour Binga, and you have the advantage of knowing that you're starting with stable, calm and happy parent cats.

 

Believe me, it's nothing like that easy with either oriental cats or cats which come with unknown personality traits like a DSH from rescue. I had a litter of 7 as fosters last year which were all climbing curtains and pulling themselves up the sides of the sofa by 5 weeks- their mummy was just the same and is currently running her new owner ragged.

 

The other thing is that if all of your cats are entire and hormonal then I take it that you've got all girls? Young toms can do a horrendous amount of damage with territory marking with their claws if they're that way inclined. Even neutered toms are made of just muscle and energy at a year old, as I'm finding out with the gorgeous but strong willed Isaac who came to me as a very broken kitten.

 

Billy (who is part oriental and also came to me as a broken kitten) is strong enough to pull himself up a plaster wall by his claws when he wants to, so I'm glad that he plays nicely most of the time!

 

Most of the damage to my house has come about from small kittens to be honest, with needle claws and no knowledge of the household rules. By the time they're grown up enough to know the rules then they're quite amenable to using scratching pads, posts and carpet with the hessian side out- whilst I'm looking at least!

 

What I really meant with my original post was that there's no real way that you can guarantee a kitten not doing damage and if the sofa is that important then the only way you can make sure that it's not damaged is to not get the kitten in the first place.

 

Of course there's a chance that preventative measures will work, but you do need to be prepared for what will happen if they don't. If it's a deal breaker it's much better to not expect the kitten to be unrealistically perfect and just not bring them into the home in the first place because even if it's not the sofa, the odds are that there will be something that gets damaged as a result of the kitten.

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