cats ruining stair carpet

sophsnan

Hello i am looking for some advise please my two babies aka bonnie and clyde have ruined my stair and landing carpet keep clawing it etc parts of it have holes in it :mad: We are soon going to replace it has anyone any advise how to stop this happening again ?

My hubbys suggestion of cutting their paws off did'nt go down well lol:eek:

Any advise would be welcome as I thought I could start trying any suggestions asap

Many Thanks

paidinchickens

Have they got a scratch post??

sophsnan

Yes they always had a scratch post but bonnie uses it more than clyde forgot to mention they are manily indoor cats only come in the garden when im in there

runfaraway

I would try more scratch posts around the home, and especially near the places they scratch, sprayed with catnip or honeysuckle spray. You can get pretty attractive ones now like vases with an integrated scratching surface so they don't have to ruin the look of your home.

Also maybe get one of those scratching wave boards that sort of give the impression of being a stair if that's the type of shape they like to scratch. If money's an issue, a cheap carpet-textured rug or carpet offcut can be a good substitute for a scratching post or mat. My cat gets a lot of joy out of destroying whatever ikea's cheapest rug of the moment is.

If you see them scratching the carpet pick them up and take them to the scratching post, placing their paws on it and moving them in a scratching motion. Reward them with treats and encouragement when you see them using the scratching posts on their own to reinforce the good behaviour. That should help lessen the carpet scratching if not stop it completely.

tanith

I was never able to stop my cats from doing this either. In America they do something called declawing :eek: thankfully its illegal over here.. the only I can suggest is maybe use a water pistol every time you catch them at it, but obviously you won't be there every time..
Don't suppose you fancy sanding and varnishing instead of carpet.:D

sophsnan

I have always heard of a citrus ? spray that cats don't like don't know what its called any ideas ? or more importantly does it work

sophsnan

tanith wrote: »

I was never able to stop my cats from doing this either. In America they do something called declawing :eek: thankfully its illegal over here.. the only I can suggest is maybe use a water pistol every time you catch them at it, but obviously you won't be there every time..
Don't suppose you fancy sanding and varnishing instead of carpet.:D

Unfortuntaly they seem to do it when we are at work. Did mention sanding and varnishing they stairs to hubby but hes was'nt so keen

splishsplash

Our cats use scratching posts, and have made their own - the banisters and bathroom doorjamb. That doesn't stop them pulling up the carpet on the landing - they've pulled it out from under the edging strips at all the bedroom doors so many times now, it's not funny. It takes me ages to get it back under again with the back end of a butter knife.

I was thinking of spraying the carpet with something like I used on the Christmas Tree (tobasco sauce and chilli powder), but I think it might rot the carpet?

tanith

sophsnan wrote: »

Unfortuntaly they seem to do it when we are at work. Did mention sanding and varnishing they stairs to hubby but hes was'nt so keen

You could paint the stairs the cats might get out of the habit if you tried it for a while..

KittyCats_2

Yea, apparently cats dislike the smell of citrus, we've used citrus peel before to stop them doing their business in certain parts of the garden. Maybe there is a citrus spray you can spray in the corners they like to scratch. I also know they don't like the smell of nail varnish, but that will ruin your carpets even more!

Have you looked on the Feliway website? I'm not too familiar with their products but I've heard they sell products to stop cats scratching.

I've been told when you catch your cat doing something naughty, to tap them lightly on the nose to tell them off. Not a hard hit as that's animal cruelty, but a gentle tap to tell them no! My 7 year old Liffey used to (quit viciously) bite our youngest cat, so we would give him a tap on the nose and he would flatten his ears and get all upset because he had been told off. Stops him from doing it so much though!

morg_monster

Another who can't stop this either. They have scratching posts which they use a lot too but it seems that anything on the carpet entices them to scratch - eg the edge of a mat or stairs, a chair leg, the door bar on the carpet, even a piece of paper or some rubbish on the floor, they just have to scratch around it!
They're shut downstairs at night so it is much worse downstairs but the stairs are fairly bad too. They do go outside but not very much during the winter.

Thought about replacing downstairs carpet with hard floors but then I worry they will start scratching the sofa!! And also that with hard floors their fluffy fur will just float around the house, at least now it sticks to the carpet (our families have allergy issues). We spray the cats with water when they do it but we both are out of the house 8:30-6:30 weekdays, and then asleep for 8 hours overnight, so really it has no effect!!

Currently we are just sucking it up and aware that when we sell the house it will look crap. The annoying thing is our carpets were new about 6m before we got the cats, so the amount of fluff that the cats bring up out of the pile is amazing. Probably we should hoover more often than once a week but life is too short...