How to Train Your Cat to Stop Scratching Your Furniture
As an owner of a cat, one of your main priorities will be to train your cat to prevent it from scratching your furniture. This will not only prevent stress for you, it will enable you to form a better bond with your cat.
First of all you need to have an understanding as to why cats scratch. It's not a question of your cat not having a taste for your furniture, or that your cat wants to irritate you. The simple fact is that cats love to scratch. Scratching is a natural cat behavior, and you cannot prevent your cat from doing this. However you can train your cat to scratch something else, other than your prized furniture.
Scratching is normal and healthy activity for cats. Scratching is neccessary for a cat so that it can keep its muscles in good shape. Cats paws have scent glands and scratching helps them to leave a scent in order to mark their territory. Your cat will also scratch as a means of keeping their claws sharp and clean. So you can see that a cat has its reasons to scratch. You need to encourage this behavior in the correct manner instead of preventing it.
The one thing that you should never do is to punish your cat if you catch it scratching the furniture. Cats will not respond to punishment and will increase your cats problems. Your cat will try to stay out of your way all the time if you try to punish it in any way. Even if you chase your cat away when you catch it scratching furniture, all it will do is to wait until you have gone, and then continue to ruin your furniture behind your back. The one way to prevent a cat from scratching furniture is through the use of effective training methods.
The first thing that you must do when you get a cat is to buy a scratching post. Give your cat more options to scratch by buying more than 1 scratching post. Although a cat can be trained to use a scratching post at any age, the earlier you can start to train your, the better it will be for you, your cat, and especially your furniture.
Try to place the posts in areas that your cat likes hanging out. Try putting a post near the place your cat sleeps on a regular basis. A good scratch and a good stretch is cat's first port of call after it wakes up. I think we all share this particular trait. Cats are creatures of habit and they can form the habit of using a scratching post pretty quickly.
The area of the house where your family sits is also a good place for a scratching post. Cats do like to socialize with members of the family, even though at sometimes seems not to be the case. If your cat chooses to have a nap on your lap, a nearby scratching post will come in handy.
The best way to train your cat to use a scratching post, is to make it familiar to your cat. Make the post a plaything by waving some string around it so that your cat makes contact with the post with its claws. You could tie some of your pet's favourite toys onto the post, this will encourage your cat to make contact with the post with its paws. These easy techniques will allow you to train your cat so that it no longer uses your furniture for scratching.
Make sure that the scratching post is not too short, and make sue that it is firmly in place. Cat training is not difficult if you use the right methods, and it is easy to train your cat to stop it from ruining your furniture.