how do you stop your cats scratching your furniture..

[catnapper]

Gosh I REALLY wish I had enough chairs to go around for everyone here! My husband sounded just like everyone else with leather.... until we got leather. Now there's only leather in my house for a good reason: its soft, easy to wipe down, hypo-allergenic, doesn't hold animal smells, and takes ALL the abuse the pets give it.

My husband has a side business of removing all the old furniture any customer from my store - whether its my customer or a coworker's. We then clean up the old furniture and sell it. Its making ends meet and its actually a lot of fun. Every leather piece? I have a waiting list a mile long for family because they've fallen in love with its awesomeness. Right now I have two matching white leather chairs that came from another cat rescuer's home. Its almost pristine. Needs a good cleaning to get the dye from jeans off it, but otherwise, perfection. My mom is super excited about them; she's the last holdout of team "I don't like leather"


Leather is more affordable than ever. REAL leather is not hot in the summer or cold in the winter. I swear to you, buy leather and you'll never be sorry. It take OVER 300 pounds of pressure to cut leather. 7 cats with calws, Cameron, and Callie haven't done anything to mine. The biggest scratch? Someone visited with fake nails that scracthed the surface. I took shoe polish and filled it in.... never saw the scratch again. I do have a leather chair in the bedroom thats covered in a blanket, but I cover it for Flutter to get up to the bookcase. She can't climb the leather as easily as fabric.



Back to fabric, I could type a book on fabric and pet durability. I talk to customers all day long (I sell furniture!) and I've been considering writing some type of blog about design and living with pets. PM me with what you bought and I could try to help you keep them disinterested in scratching it. The fabric you bought will be the key. Some fabrics are great with pets, others are disasters waiting to happen... no matter how many scratching posts or nail trims or squirt bottles you use. Some fabrics are just enemeies to pet families. A woven chenille fabric is the worst. Anything nubby is just begging the cats to say, "Hey look at my HUGE new scratching post!" A velvet is good. and so on.....

[carole]

thanks catnapper,that made very interesting reading, however real leather is not affordable for me, you are looking at 2 to 3 thousand dollars for one here,and i now have my new suite,which i love and am more than happy with, was half price on sale, and is just the right size, comfort, very ultra modern type with a chaise,and two headrests,in a black/grey colour they call midnight, i did the research and found out it is polyester/acrylic, don't know if that helps any.

I think it does depend on the cat, my friend has a leather suite and the cat has clawed that,however i have two look like leather ottomans, and the cats have not touched it.

As for catnip, well i believe nz and australian cats do not have what they call the catnip gene, and i think it possibly is true as neither my cats respond to it very much.

i think a spray bottle with water would work for nikki, she would hate it , mind you she might be confused as to why i am doing that and would be very hurt, emotionally i mean, she does not even like it if i raise my voice and put my growlie voice on,i think i will try the double sided tape as well, for a start anyhow and maybe cover it at nights, as that is when i am not around she could well start doing it.

Thanks for the advice guys, keep your fingers and toes and paws crossed my lil monkey leaves well alone.