Annie wrote:

ive covered up the furniture and put out a scratching post
and a flat board with carpet on it

i tried catching mitzi scratching the furniture and moving
her to the cat post or the board and encouraging her to use
it

when that didnt work i tried yelling no and then moving her
when that didnt work i tried a squirt gun
when that didnt work i tried clipping her nails short

Have you tried SoftPaws, or something like it? These are coverings
that the vet would put onto her claws.

Check this out:
http://www.softpaws.com/

Also, there are sprays you can squirt onto furniture that smell bad
to a cat and would discourage them from visiting that area, but
wouldn't smell bad to a human. You might ask at a pet store or ask
your vet about that. I hear that cats don't like the smell of citrus,
so maybe a citrus spray would help?

Another thing that some people have tried is to put aluminum foil
onto places where they don't want their cat going, touching, scratching,
etc. Apparently, cats can't stand the feeling of it. I've mostly heard
this used to stop a cat from peeing on places they shouldn't, and I'm
sure it's much easier to put aluminum foil on a flat surface than on the
arms of a couch or chair, but you might give it a try. At the same time,
rub some catnip on her scratching post, and see if she gets used to using
that. You wouldn't have to keep the foil on your furniture forever, just
until she's "retrained" into using the scratching post.

Also, get her a couple more scratching posts, and put them right next
to the places on the furniture where she scratches. I have a scratching
post next to one arm of my couch where the cats used to scratch, and
they switched to the scratching post when I got them that. But they
still continued to scratch the *other* arm of the couch, when they were
on that end... too lazy to go over to their scratching post! So I got
a second scratching post and put it next to the other arm - voila, no
more scratching the couch. Maybe your cat needs one or two more
scratching posts to divert her attention?

Joyce

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