HELP! Cat scratching new sofa !!!!

UKTigerlily

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

Yup, us pet owners will probably never make it into 'homes and gardens' magazines, (she says, thinking of time old dog dug a hole in the middle of leather settee overnight, and looking at the tumbleweeds of dog hair under the kitchen table!) but they are worth it - to be honest, having any animal in the house means compromise about what's important.

:rotfl: < I can laugh I have a day & a bit till I have to be a responsible dog owner! I have to spend all tomorrow making the place tidy & clearing out the kitchen paint cupboard it's bound to get in & paint itself else

foreign_correspondent

unless your cupboards are very easy to open, I doubt she will bother, unless you take to storing opened tins of sardines in there it wont smell all that interesting to her anyway!

moggylover

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

hmm new kitten and leather suite - I am not sure the two mix well to be honest!

I'm certain they don't:D

Would it be possible to only allow the cat into that particular room when you are with it (or maybe not at all - you could still make a lot of fuss of it in other rooms I suppose).

Personally, I think it would be a one or the other choice. I'd go for the cat and a less lovely lounge:o - but each to his/her own.

Kimberley

Hey

The day I got my Bengal kitten to this very day my Oscar has never ever touched my sofa and I have a suede one. From day one he used to use my rug, but after three or four days of training him to use the cat scratcher he stopped.

Please stop worrying. What you will need to do is not put your new kitty in the same room as the sofa until he is using the scratching tree by himself and you do not need to show him how to use it anymore. It won't take long these cats are very very intelligent, i've taught Oscar how to sit and paw for a treat.

As long as you have one or two cat trees for him to use around the house you will be fine, but you need to stop it from day one, if you see him/her going to use your sofa you need to pick him/her up and rub their paws up and down the scratch post, they will soon get the idea.

You wouldn't leave a baby in a room on their own would you? It's the same as kittens, always supervise them.

can't wait until you get your kitten and see pics

Kimberley

LADY_A wrote: »

also they say bengals are quite inteligent and you can command them to fetch etc...so why not no scratching the sofas?

You can, stop worrying

Kimberley

hethmar wrote: »

Good luck. Unbelievably in the states some cats are declawed because their owners value their furniture more than the animal

It's very barbaric, i'm sure the owners/vets in these countries who declaw wouldn't want their fingernails pulled out. It's very painful for the cat as well and also the poor cat has no defences against itself. Normally though these cats get very depressed and have behavioural problems, i'm so glad it's not down over here.

If you want a cat then you have to deal and put up with anything it does around the house. I know someone over here who has a declawed cat who bought her over from the US.

MrsTinks

I so should have kept pictures of the old leather sofa we had... between the cats, the dog and my DH's ex's JRTs they fair demolished it... Cats were responcible for the sides and arm rest damage and the dogs for the rest... Oddly neither have bothered with the new sofa's but the livingroom door is shut during the night now and the slightest sign of anyone wanting to stretch using a sofa gets an immediate reaction involving being ejected to the garden regardless of weather...
But as kittens? I never had new sofa's... it was a loosing battle! Infact between them they even demolished a new matress and divan base!
Kittens scratch stuff.... it's what they do! Look at it as a bonus if they don't

Kimberley

I must say that having two kittens at once is more hard work to keep off the sofa, because they chase and play with each other, but it's much easier when you have just the one. i'm so glad how lucky i've been, even with the missing kitten, she was fine too. You just have to be patient and work hard training them, but if you put in that work then you should/will have no problems.

foreign_correspondent

yes, but its only responsible to realise that the cat may well want to scratch the sofa, and will if given half a chance - this is what kittens are like.

If you have a new kitten and a new sofa, it is your responsibility to keep them apart, especially when you are not on the room. If you leave the door open accidentally for five minutes, or shut the cat in without noticing and the cat destroys the sofa, then you have to accept that is your fault, not the cats.

So many people on here are struggling because their cat scales the christmas tree, or their dog will not stop chewing - I think, you have to accept, nefore you get any animal that they have no respect for property (it means nothing to them, it is only us humans who value the aesthetics of clean carpets and shiny new leather sofa's)

My old dog took all the corners of the carpets up to hide food under them (she had been starved) for some time after she came here. For some people this may well have been too much, luckily I had cheap old carpets, and so could think 'oh, well, its only carpet!' - I may have felt different if I had just spent hundreds having lovely new carpets fitted!

MrsTinks

FC you just reminded me that the kittens pulled up the carpet in any room if they were shut in there for any reason! Like if I had to do something in the downstairs that would be bad for them or they could get hurt, I'd shut them in my bedroom and then struggle to get in past the carpet they'd pulled up!!! I'm very good at re-laying carpet as a result!
I'd forgotten about that :rotfl:
They haven't done it since we moved in with OH as he was very definite that cats do NOT go in bedroom! And apart from the first few months where we used a water spray a lot they learnt that we don't pull up carpets and we don't try to scratch our way through the door to get to mummy...