"KC" wrote in message
s.com...
We have had our two adorable cats now for about 8 years (RB 8yrs, Kitty 6
yrs), and now we have a little maltese terrier to compliment our family.

Unfortunatley it has meant our furniture has taken the toll from
scratching.

I have tried a couple of Cat Posts but with no success. We have also
tried
rubbing in pepper powder, lavender, and chilli powder into the soft
furniture but somehow they all seem to like just scratching it.

I am now looking at replacing our three peice lounge cloth suite, and I'm
thinking of perhaps a leather suite rather than a cloth suite.

Would this solve the problem? Has anyone had any success choosing a
leather
suite over a new clothe suite?

Additionally, is there a better way of making a scrathing post? Our two
cats live inside all the time, I do trim their claws about once a month,
however they do seem to want to continue to scratch on our furniture.

We love them dearly by the way, and they are family to us.

Kulander.


Trim the claws twice a month and consider using Soft Paws. Use double
sticky tape (tape that has adhesive on both sides) on the corners of your
new furniture, and place a scratching post at EACH corner. That may sound
like excess, but it's NOT. Spray the scratching posts with Feliway and the
furniture with a CAT NO products. After about 2 weeks, you can remove the
double sticky tape. After about 2 more weeks, you can start to move a few
of the scratching posts to a less obtrusive spot, but you need at least one
post close to each piece of furniture. Keep a water pistol close at hand
for any backsliding and be prepared to do the tape thing again if something
in the house changes and upsets them. With cats, sometimes just the change
of season upsets their equilibrium, so this is never a once and you're done
type of training. You've got to always think like a cat, and sometimes cat
thinking means that cause and effect aren't always linked, or else they're
totally linked in a way you'd never expect. Like when you go to put canned
food in the dish and the cat sticks his head in there first and you dump the
food on his head. Some cats think that they always need the food dumped on
their head before they can eat, so they'll repeat the behavior. Some cats
think they need to claw "forbidden" objects and get squirted with the water
pistol before they claw "approved" objects because that's the way their
internal reward system has worked the problem out. You've got to be able to
shape their behavior even when you're not present, and that's why the double
sticky tape works so well.