We have three cats. One of them is recovering from some scratches and needs to be quarantined. That would be Daisy. Another one, Mr. Burns desperately wants inthat room so he is literally clawing out the carpet trying to, I presume, dig his way into the room. Our third cat watches in amusement.
Somebody help?
If your problem is that he’s shredding the carpet, welcome to my world.
My cat Elvin shredded the threshold carpet of three bedrooms before we discovered and started using Soft Paws They’re little plastic claw covers that allow him to extend his claws and scratch but they’re blunt so he can’t shred anything.
Elvin’s scratching came from his dislike of being locked in a room which we had to do occasionally for various reasons. He’d get his little paw under the door and scratch and scratch and scratch. In my daughter’s room he scratched down to the tack strip making it dangerous to step on the threshold.
He’s mostly grown out of that habit now. He still wears Soft Paws (to keep his claws out of the furniture) and we’ve replaced the flooring in all three bedrooms.
Lovely felines!
How about laying some double-sided tape on the carpet? Or a couple layers of duct tape?
We did Soft Paws for a while, but one of my cats would pull his own claws out if he had to, to get rid of those things. Plus they’re expensive! Now I just clip their claws, but that has to be done pretty frequently.
Our bigger cat is passionately fond of anything sticky. If it’s sticky or gooey, he must play with it and see how many places he can get it stuck to his furs. He licks it and chews it and bats it around and sticks it to his paws and his face and (occasionally) his butt, giving every evidence of sheer bliss. The sound of tape being peeled will bring him on the run to find it.
For example, he absolutely luuurrrrvvveeeesss the sticker strips you have to peel off of DVDs when you unwrap them. Those are one of his favoritest things.
More than once I’ve come across my cat with a big wad of something amazingly sticky attached to his ass or face purring like a fiend and giving me the “What Mommy, what?” look when I try to remove his “encumberance”.
Using tape as a “no scratching” (or “don’t pee here dammit”) tool doesn’t work well for us. Or, rather, it works like a charm on precisely 50% of our cats.
Just greenlighting here…
What about one of those heavy plastic dohickeys that go under office chairs to protect the carpet from the chair wheels? Put it in front of the door, or slip it under the door from the other side to protect the carpet. That ought to be heavy enough to protect the carpet from the kitty claws.
You might also try a baby gate, they’re expensive so see if you can borrow one from a friend. To keep the kitty just far enough away that he can’t shred the carpet under the door.
Dung Beetle I agree, my cat tries like hell to bite them off but gives up after a while. Does clipping the claws really keep them from being destructive?
I’m curious why you think they’re expensive? $20 gets me enough soft paws to last about 3 months. Of course I only put them on 1 of my cats (the other one is de-clawed). That doesn’t seem overly expensive to me but YMMV. I guess if kitty is pulling them off at regular intervals you’d go through them faster.
That was gonna be my suggestion. Or that plastic runner stuff that they use to protect carpet. (We put that on the corners of our couches to discourage the cats from the destroying the furniture. Ugly, but it worked.)
We have a cat who shredded the carpet in our last three apartments because we shut him out of the bedroom at night. We tried a baby gate, but he scratched around it or rattled it so loudly that it kept us up. We also tried a pan of water to block access to the door (he moved it) and tape (didn’t bother him).
The only thing that works to keep him away is to aim a box fan at the door, a few inches away. He won’t sit in the wind tunnel it creates.
Cope, cruel creep!
velvet: Yeah, I have to put the Soft Paws on both cats. Then I don’t see much of Lloyd for the next two days while he works on himself, and he’s the one who will scratch things he shouldn’t, so I really have to replace them a lot. I have double-sided tape on all the wooden porch posts, and that works but it doesn’t look very nice!
What is the board stance on de clawing. I got a cat now that was fixed and declawed. I never declawed a cat .All my previous kittties went out. I do not think you can let a kitty with powder puff front hand out . But as far as the house ,it is a lot better for carpets and furniture.
Well you have just potentially opened a can of worms. There is no “board” stance, personally I am against it.