How do I get my spoiled siamese cat to scratch scratching post and not the sofa?
Friday, November 6th, 2009 at
3:14 am
My cat keeps scratching the sofa but not the scratching post! She doesn’t even touch the post but she always scratches the sofa. If I put catnip on the post she just snifs it for a minute or two and walks away! If I show her she won’t listen. What should I do to get her to scratch the darn post!
Filed under: Cat Furniture
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what i do is put tape on my sofa so it sticks to my cat and he gets negative experience. i also say no and chase him away when i see him in the act. A squirt bottle of water works good too as negative reinforecement.
I put the scracth post down and PRAISE him around it saying "GOOD BOY!!! and give him a treat everytime he gets on the post. positive reinforcement.
a way to get them to stop scratching as much is to trim the nails regularly. when they are short– they do not want to groom them as much. every 2-3 weeks is good.
do NOT declaw him– this is inhumane as it is amputaing about a quarter of his finger or the first digit. just trim the nails and do positive reinforcement.
belt …
every time it scratches the chair, punish it. then after a while it might realize that scratching the sofa is related to punishment and go onto scratching the post.
Most of times posts don’t really work…My grandma used to own a Siamse cat, she always buys a rectangle box installed with cut up cardboards inserted in it, it does really work and it takes a while for it to wear out..You can find them in pet stores. I think it is because the carpet on the posts doesn’t give cats any satisfication, they need something harder to stratch their nails off… Hope that helps!
You can’t really MAKE her use the post. You can, however, stop her from scratching your furniture. Everytime you catch her scratching the furniture, squirt her with a water bottle. It doesn’t cause her any physical harm and they hate it. She will soon learn that scratching the furniture equals water squirt.
You can buy some products that will "attract" her to the post, but it’s no guarantee that she’ll use it for scratching.
train it don’t let it have it’s own way if she keeps going to the sofa tell her no and place her in front of the scratching post till she learns it always works for me
Whenever your cat scratches the sofa, punish her, perhaps with a squirt of water from a squirt bottle and an angry tone of voice. Then move her to the scratching post so she knows thats where she should be. This may take a while to become effective since it is a habit to scratch on the sofa.
Our siamese wanted to scratch the furniture, then one day I brought home from work a square piece of plastic, that was used in a box for shipping, it is about 3/4 of an inch thick, and sort of honeycombed inside. I thought it was interesting so I brought it home, laid it on the floor, the cat immediately went to it and started scratching. Never once has she scratched any sofa since. It lays on the floor next to her bed. She scratches when she gets up, and scratches when she lays down. You just need to try different things. Each cat has their own preference, our other cat has never scratched this plastic board. Good luck
slapping or screaming at the cat only traumatizes (?) it, try using a water bottle and squirting her when she scratches the sofa. walmart has toys. we bought our cats a circular thingy with a ball around the perimeter that doesn’t come out. the ball can be batted around and the middle has a pressed cardboard that my cats love to scratch. it also comes with catnip that is finely chopped…like the shake in the bottom of a bag of pot:)
Siamese are dumb. Trust me, mine will 6 years old, and if he still had claws, the couch would be in ribbons by now. Squirt bottles will only work if your cat hates water. Carpet tape is good training, but depends on the kind of material the furniture is. They make a kind of spray to keep pets away from places you don’t want then to be. I never had anything for my cats to sctatch on, but the cardboard kind might do the trick. I had a friend who has a hymalayian (part persian, part siamese) and that cat loves cardboard!
I just said this to someone else a few minutes ago. I tried having a half dozen scratching post and cat still used the sofa. I de-clawed.