Aluminum foil could work too, but it’s very ugly. We have foil on the bottom window ledges of the dining room French doors, because one cat loves to be in that room so much but we keep it closed, especially during the winter when we only heat it when needed. She was beginning to damage the door, so we simply scotch-taped strips of foil to the doors, and she hasn’t touched them since. I don’t know if she’d start up again if we were to take them down, but at this point, they don’t bother us much.
Obligatory picture ofcat and doors, prior to the foiling!
Huh. I think you’re right. I didn’t even notice I did that, and it’s totally wrong. I usually pretty good about appropriate apostrophizing(?) but the -t- at the end must have brought on some automatic response. Interesting.
little plastic claw caps from petco. you trim the nail, squdge the paw so the claw sticks out, and superglue them on. I have clear right now, but in the past have had hot pink, purple, red and black claw caps.
It’s almost impossible to keep a cat’s nails trimmed because they sharpen them one nail at a time. You’d have to inspect them daily. I’ve lost 3 pieces of furniture to one of my cats. If she was younger I’d have her nails removed because there is no teaching her not to do it.
I would suggest throwing a blanket over the couch and removing it when guests are using it.
FYI, cat nails grow in layers and the sides split off like sheet rock. This is one way they can be thinned. They also don’t grow in a hook shape, they grow in more of a half moon shape. The bottom of the nail is carved out by the cat drawing the nail through it’s teeth. This is useful to know because people often just nip off the tip of a nail if it hasn’t been thinned yet. All the nail forward of the live part is fair game and if just a little bit is removed the cat can still sharpen it down to a point. I discovered this over time when I would trim my cat’s nails and find them sharpened shortly thereafter. You can scrape the underside of an unsharpened nail and get the sides to split off. By thinning the nail down it becomes easier to cut off.
One of my cats had a nail grow into it’s paw pad requiring a trip to the vet. She was simply not going to allow me to do it. I was surprised how much nail the vet took off and how little the cat objected. The cat seemed less upset by the vet doing it and I think it might have something to do with the speed of the vet. He did it much faster so there was probably less initial squeezing of the nail. I’ve taken a more aggressive tact with my cats and it seems to work. Once I’ve hooked the trimmer under the spot I want to trim I clip it quickly. I was able to trim an ingrown nail the 2nd time it happened.
Yes, that’s what seems to have happened with his pinky nail. We usually get really close to the live part, but it looks like I didn’t do such a good job with the pinky toe.
Hey, now there’s an idea.
Tho’ the idea of “Squiggy” + “superglue” sounds like it could lead to no end of disaster.
When we used soft paws on The Bernie, we wrapped her in a towel with part of it over her head. It calmed her down quite a bit.
An aside, to “help” her stop jumping on the counter tops I blew up a ton of balloons and taped them to the counter. Her first claw extened leap was a shocker. She never went up there again. I pinned a few to the back of our furniture when we first bought it - she’d smell the balloons and run away. Of course when I took the balloons off WHEEEE!
Depends of the type of upholstery, I guess. If it has some loft to it (Not leather or microfiber) you can just tack it in with upholstery tacks - once you pull it off, you don’t see the holes at all.
Our cats never touch the microfiber couch, for some reason…
Yep, having no claws doesn’t keep them from trying to sharpen them on stuff, though of course they hurt nothing. I make a point of yelling at the declawed cat for “scratching” the furniture, because the one with claws sulks if we let her get away with it, and not him.
Fetchund, the brand new microsuede couch already has claw marks from the boy
