Okay, so we just paid a boatload to have a great old chair re-covered. The new fabric is, evidently, far too enticing for that rat bastard cat, Squiggy. Squiggy, throughout his entire life has been really good with his claws and has only used the sratching post (a freakin’ cat jungle gym), I got him and Lenny. He’s a well-trained little turd and I’ve had him for ten years or so without a problem.
But this new chair is clearly to die for! (And he just might if he keeps it up).
Short of having his claws surgically removed, I need some strategies. We’re gong to try a spray that is a pet deterrent. Humans can’t really smell it but animals think it’s worse than sulphur farts from a hangover. Anyone try this stuff?
We can’t just spray him with water, because he’s sneaky enough to only do it when we’re not around.
We do trim his claws and inspect them every two days. His one pinky claw got somehow re-sharpened and during our inspection we noticed it had chair fabric caught in it. :mad:
You might want to rethink this. I had my two current cats declawed, and they don’t even notice the difference. They still “claw” at things, but there’s no damage.
Make sure that his scratching post is near the chair, so he has a way to defer the urge. Put catnip on the post.
If you can do it for a while, get some of that carpet-runner protecting plastic - you know, the stuff with the heavy-duty nubblies on the back? Tack it nubby side out to the area he is scratching until he switches to the post. I’ve yet to see a cat try to scratch THAT stuff twice. If you tack it up loosely, you should be able to remove it when guests are coming over.
I’ve tried double-sided tape on a chair, but it doesn’t work as well as that nubby stuff would. How would you attach it to the chair without damaging the upholstery?
There are some products that you can purchase, too, such as the scat mat or the x-mat. They work well as training tools though they are technically negative reinforcement, but not associated with any action on your part so they’re not negatively associated with you or other people.
Covering the fabric portion in cellophane would probably work just as well, just wrap it around the chair and tear it off for company. Cat’s aren’t usually fans of scratching plastic, though some of them like to lick it!
There’s sticky furniture tape for just this purpose. My parents have some on their furniture and you really can’t see it from three feet away. When I buy a new couch, I’m going to get some. My current couch is a lost cause.
I was trying to leave one comment alone, but once it’s been seconded, I have to make sure people see the whole picture. Declawing is not just pulling nails out, it is an amputation equal to cutting off your fingers at the first knuckle. There’s one better, though. Cats have a tendon attached to their claws that allows them to be retractable. That tendon is also severed along with half the paw pad removed. The severed tendon retracts permanently and forever is uncomfortably tight because the cat can no longer stretch it out by grabbing and pulling with its claws.
People say their cats don’t miss their claws, well the fact that the cat still tries to scratch directly contradicts that thinking. While scratching behavior is still a way to scent-mark, it’s also a vital form of exercise.
While I’d rather see a cat permanently in a home and sometimes mutilation is the only way for it to keep that home, I have yet to hear a really good argument from any owner that isn’t based on material belongings. Causing pain and permanent discomfort to an animal for the sake of a piece of furniture? Anyone who’s done it isn’t going to have their mind changed here. I can only hope I can enlighten someone who hasn’t committed the act yet.
I applaud the OP for trying to figure out an alternative - of which there are many.
My concern would be that the furry little turd would resume scratching as soon as the tape comes off the chair. Plus, we’re a little worried that the tape would damage the fabric.
We have actually had decalwed cats before. Lenny, for example was declawed when he was young, but that’s because he was doing more damage to everything around him than any cat I’ve ever seen (we had claw marks running down the wall because he went after a spider).
With Squiggy, it’s more because he’s almost ten or so, and until this chair, he has been really, honestly, truly good about them, so unnecessary surgery is something we would prefer to avoid for many of the reasons SeaDragon mentioned. Squiggy has never hurt anyone with his claws, he swats the dog routinely but keeps his claws in when he does, he’s very gentle, and he swings around the cat jungle gym like a spider monkey. He wouldn’t be able to do that clawless.
So when it comes to chair vs. cat’s well-being, the cat would take priority. He’s a living thing. If the house was on fire we’d save the cat not the chair, so we’d rather not chop off the end of his toes if we can find a workable solution. But we also really like the chair.
I have a theory on that. It’s because of the “T” at the end of “cat” and the muscle memory of typing more common words.
We more commonly write words like “it’s” and “that’s” so when it comes time to write “cats” we absent-mindedly apostropize it. (Is that a word?)
