Is the sisal or carpted scratch post the best for a cat?
Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at
8:43 am
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Filed under: Cat Scratching Post
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It depends on your cat. My scratch posts are all carpet. I had a sisal scratch post and none of my cats used it. They prefer carpet.
My cat won’t scratch carpet but loves the Cardboard type scratchers. Only problem is they can be messy.
A cat’s claws can get stuck if they don’t get trimmed, not because of what they are scratching on. It’s best to get a scratch post with both carpet *and* sisal, as cats definitely have preferences as to what they like to scratch. Most cats tend to prefer the sisal over the carpet, at least mine all do. And some cats prefer those cheap cardboard scratch boxes, so it’s always good to provide one of those too.
I buy my cat the sisal mainly because I don’t want her to get confused and start scratching the furniture or my carpet. She seems to like it she always uses it. I haven’t tried the cardboard posts.
If the problem you’re trying to avoid is a cat scratching the carpets, avoid getting carpeting, they cannot discern so well which they can have a go at and which they cannot, that’s why I go with sisal, sisal also lasts longer. From time to time my oldest gets her nails caught in the carpeting one, never happens with sisal.
I would use a mix (plan on building my own treehouse). I trim nails anyway, so they would still be able to scratch the sisal but not get claws caught.
IMO you should not rely on treehouse/scratching posts to keep the nails wore down – trim them too.
Cats prefer to scratch something which has a vertical thread, and one of the problems with sisal posts is that it’s wound horizontally around the post. (This is also why their claws sometimes snag). I get around this problem by laying the post on it’s side and our male cat seems to prefer using it that way.
The carpeted posts are fine unless you have carpeted floors. As someone else mentioned, cats can’t be expected to understand why it’s okay to scratch carpet on a post, but not elsewhere.
Our female cat is so fussy that she refuses to scratch on anything but sheets of corrugated cardboard, so I save old boxes for her to use. As all cats have individual preferences for what textures they enjoy scratching, it’s best if you can offer them a few alternatives until you find out what they like best.