cats pulling at carpet

jvpari

Does anyone have any ideas to discourage my cat from pulling at the carpet. I've moved the scratching post to the area it tends to happen, cut his nails and point a water spray at him when i catch him. Any other suggestions?

con1888

I wish I knew. Frankie does it and he is 9months now. Even my cat who stays at mums still does it (not as often though) and she is 11. She won't use a scratching post.

StudioBeau

Cats are very sensitive to smells, so find something you cat doesn't like (vinegar, lemon/orange) and put maybe a cotton bud soaked in it in the area. Then, where you do want your cat to scratch put cat nip or something else that smells good to them. Remember - just having a scratching post is not enough, my cat does not use traditional scratching posts but the cardboard boxes that live on the floor - he goes mad for them! It may be that your cat does not like scratching vertically (my cat always went for the carpet and not the side of the sofas) and therefore does not use your scratching post. Try different things, stick with them and stop trying to punish your cat with the water bottle, punishing cats rarely works. If your cat starts scratching, put your cat onto the scratch area and praise the cat.

rising_from_the_ashes

jvpari wrote: »

cut his nails and point a water spray at him when i catch him. Any other suggestions?

OMG sorry but poor cat ..... how would you like it if someone cut your nails right down & pointed water spray at you if you were doing something totally natural?:mad:

Some cats scratch at carpets, curtains (and anything else going) and others don't - it's one of their quirks and something we take on board when we share our lives with them.

Plenty of scratching posts (both vertical and horizontal) may help but, at the end of the day, some do it and, if you have one that does, you need to learn to live with it.

MissGolightly

oh don't be ridiculous, it is not cruel to cut a cats nails, and it is not cruel to squirt a little water on them when they are not looking, hopefully cat will eventually associate bad squirty thing with scratching carpet and not want to do it. honestly, some on this board would have people slaughtered, i absolutely adore my two kitties, and they adore me. but let's not forget THEY ARE ANIMALS, not people. they don't feel any emotion whatsoever at having their nails cut, neither does any person i know for that matter, but anyway, this isn't helping op.

op, i would say to you, make sure you are cutting the cats nails correctly, i.e. not the pink bit, as long as you just take the tip off the cat will feel nothing, perhaps a bit confused as to what it is you are doing but they won't suffer any long-term mental damage.

i found with my older boy he loved scratching the sofa, and wouldn't touch a scratch post, so what i've done is cover the bits of the sofa he scratched with double sided tape, set up a scratch board and barrell beside the seat he was scratching and smothered them in cat nip, and now over a couple of weeks i have moved the board over against a wall and the barrell is inching its way into the hall. you need to think about what it is your cat likes to scratch, my boy liked the big sturdy armchair, so the board and the barrell are far better suited to him, than a scratch post which can move, and doesn't have a nice big flat surface for him to pluck away at.

i won't say he never touches the armchair anymore, but it is certainly a lot lot less, like once every couple of days he thinks about it, and then maybe has a wee go, but then feels the sticky tape and moves on again.

good luck!

StudioBeau

MissGolightly wrote: »

but let's not forget THEY ARE ANIMALS, not people. they don't feel any emotion whatsoever at having their nails cut, neither does any person i know for that matter, but anyway, this isn't helping op.

Actually, because they are animals and not people they can not as easily rationalise things like nail cutting, they can get very distressed about their claws being cut even if it doesn't hurt. Same with car travel, washing, being left on their own, etc.

purple.sarah

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

OMG sorry but poor cat ..... how would you like it if someone cut your nails right down & pointed water spray at you if you were doing something totally natural?:mad:

Some cats scratch at carpets, curtains (and anything else going) and others don't - it's one of their quirks and something we take on board when we share our lives with them.

Plenty of scratching posts (both vertical and horizontal) may help but, at the end of the day, some do it and, if you have one that does, you need to learn to live with it.

Grooming and training are part of pet ownership, some of the responsibilities we take on board when we share our lives with them. Cats claws need to be kept short to stop them catching on something or curling over and cutting into the paws. Sometimes they do this themselves sometimes they can't. Trimming their claws will not do them any harm as long as you are gentle and only trim the nail, not the quick.

Scratching is natural and the OP has provided an outlet for it with a scratching post. Scratching everything is destructive and tolerating bad behaviour will just leave the poor animal confused about the boundaries and your house wrecked! Also I know for me personally it's not an option as I live in a rented house! My landlord doesn't mind well behaved pets but I think he'd object to me saying 'well I never bothered to train them or trim their claws, you just have to learn to live with it!'

A bit of water won't harm them so long as it isn't sprayed in the face. It's a recognised correction technique. A more hands off one is shaking a can of pennies near by to startle them into stopping what they are doing. The idea is that they associate doing something bad like scratching where they are not supposed to with something unpleasant and avoid it in future. If you don't like the water spray correction method why not recommend another one? The OP clearly isn't happy to just "learn to live with it" so that isn't very helpful advice.

jvpari

Thanks for the replies.

My cats are house cats so we've always trimmed their nails. I think it would be mean not to.

We have had to teach them right and wrong and a water bottle has worked a treat. We've probably only actually squirted it twice in their life and only in their direction but we now only have to reach for it and they stop whatever they were doing.

And back to scratching. They do use the post, so i'm hoping that moving it to a more prominant position and into the area that they scratch most will encourage them to use it more. We've just moved house and replaced some of the old furniture, which we let them scratch; a habit that i'm now trying to break!

purple.sarah

jvpari wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

My cats are house cats so we've always trimmed their nails. I think it would be mean not to.

We have had to teach them right and wrong and a water bottle has worked a treat. We've probably only actually squirted it twice in their life and only in their direction but we now only have to reach for it and they stop whatever they were doing.

And back to scratching. They do use the post, so i'm hoping that moving it to a more prominant position and into the area that they scratch most will encourage them to use it more. We've just moved house and replaced some of the old furniture, which we let them scratch; a habit that i'm now trying to break!

Good idea to move the scratching post nearer to where they're scratching at the moment. Also try temporarily taping something with a texture they won't like, such as tin foil or double sided tape, to the carpet. They don't like the way it feels on their paws so it should put them off. And try convincing them the scratching post is the coolest thing ever by spraying it with catnip spray and praising them when they scratch it. Good luck!

ScarlettOHara_2

my cat loves tin foil. Its her favourite toy!

con1888

Frankie loves hving his claws clipped, he's a weird one right enough, he purrs away and lies on his back to let me do it.

Do it around once a month, he is a semi housecat, only really goes out if we are in garden.