How to Protect the Furniture from Your Cat

Cats love to sharpen claws and sometimes that ends up being done on furniture you’d rather not have pockmarked with cat spots. Protect your furniture by helping your cat choose better places to scratch.

Is the cat scratching because she needs to sharpen her claws? Because she needs exercise? Because she’s marking her territory? Since there are many reasons why a cat scratches, a solution to protect your furniture must include everything. 

Ground Rules: No Punishment

As tempting as it may be to give in to your frustrations when your cat is scratching your new leather couch, punishment will just makes things worse. Cat’s don’t learn from physical reprimands; they don’t understand it at all. The most likely result from punishing your cat from scratching is that the cat will do it more. Cats remember everything and will hold a long term grudge. Skip the punishment and focus on more productive methods of saving furniture. 

Give Your Cat some Exercise

One reason cats scratch is for exercise; it’s like cat yoga and cat kickboxing combined into one. In order to convince her that this pastime is not worth pursuing, you’re going to have to give her an outlet for all that  energy. Play with her for an hour a day with a variety of cat toys. Use a cat wand with a feather at the end, little crinkle balls that you flick on the floor, catnip mice, etc. Variety is nice as well, as the goal is to exercise the cat’s mind and body. If you start this regimen, even by changing nothing else, the cat’s scratching will lessen. 

Give Your Cat Scratching Posts

Cats need to scratch. There is not a cat in the world that doesn’t scratch something, sometime. If you have a cat with a high scratch drive, compensate by providing many, many scratching posts for her to satisfy her urges. The placement of the scratching posts is highly important; there should be one right next to every place she currently scratches. If it’s both arms of the couch, then put scratching posts on the floor by each end of the couch.

The more scratching posts around, the less likely she will be to keep scratching your furniture. The most important thing is to get scratching posts the individual cat likes. This may be a trial and error period, but keep it up until you find one the cat enjoys. Start with a cardboard post, a rug post, or a wooden post. The posts should be sturdy, and you can get one with a similar material as the furniture if the cat happens to really like your Italian leather sofa. 

With plenty of scratching posts, no physical punishment, and lots of exercise, your cat soon will be using your furniture only for napping and not for scratching.