On Sun, 5 Mar 2017 13:16:31 -0500, jmcquown wrote:

Do you think if I covered the chairs with old sheets Buffy would stop
trying to use them as scratching posts?

https://usercontent2.hubstatic.com/7824609_f520.jpg

I know this has been sitting around awhile and if anybody replied, my Usenet
provider's server(s) apparently didn't pick it up, but at the time you posted it
I really didn't feel like I had a constructive reply. Minnie doesn't scratch the
furniture. I guess I'm lucky. She has three scratching posts in the house, and
although she only rarely touches the one, she's at the other two every day. I
set them up the day after I got her. She discovered the first one about two
minutes later and has used it daily ever since.

Yesterday, however, my landlady - who currently has three cats - and I were
discussing this same issue in reference to one of hers that was problematic in
this respect, and she mentioned that there are cat repellent products on the
market designed to discourage cats from using your furniture to facilitate
maintenance of those tiny little daggers of theirs. One of these is called Sour
Apple or something line that, but the idea is that you just spray them on the
furniture and it leaves a scent cats dislike. You can also make your own by
mixing a scented essential oil with warm water. If a citrus scent doesn't work
for Buffy you can try cinnamon, lavender, eucalyptus oil, or even a combination
of two or more scents - you might have to experiment to find a recipe that works
on Buffy, but I know you like playing with recipes, so I don't imagine that will
constitute a major problem for you. ;-)

If you're worried about damaging the furniture you can spray a bit of fabric cut
from old clothing or linens you're going to discard anyway, tape it to a piece
of plastic with that double-sided tape you mentioned you already have, and
secure it to the furniture however you like. Safety pins work, but if you don't
want to put pinholes in the chairs - if you wanted more holes in your furniture
you could just let Buffy do it, right? - you might prefer to use some more of
that double-sided tape instead.

Technology offers another avenue you might want to explore - a motion sensor
used in combination with something that emits an ultrasonic noise, for example.
You hide it somewhere near the chair and when the motion sensor detects her
approach it triggers the ultrasonic noisemaker and Buffy hopefully decides she
doesn't like the sound of things and heads off in another direction, leaving the
chairs and Buffy both unharmed.

Some people recommend the squirt gun method. I never had much luck with that
myself. My cats never seem to associate the incoming fire from the squirt gun
with their behavior. They associate it with me instead, and then it takes months
for the cat to stop fleeing in panic whenever I turn water on in a sink because
he or she thinks I'm about to lock and load.

If you catch her red-pawed at the furniture, you could try grabbing her and
taking her over to her scratching post and putting her paws on it - if she'll
let you get away with that without using you for a scratching post instead. This
is similar to how I got Minnie to stop attacking the drawstrings on my venetian
blinds. I'd just go get her and put her back on the floor. Sometimes I had to do
it six or seven times in a minute's time because naturally, as soon as I let go
of her she's jump right back up there and resume her attack, but eventually she
got the message. Now she only does it when the blinds are closed, and that's to
get me to open them so she can look outside - once I open them she leaves them
alone and is content to just sit there and observe the birds, squirrels, the dog
across the street, the mailman or whatever else she finds interesting out there.

Hope something here helps.

John D. Kasupski
Niagara Falls, NY