In December we picked out a lovely 1.5 year old "kitty" for our house Christmas present. My daughter wanted one and we needed one to hopefully help with the scorpion issue we have here in the desert.When adopting we were told we are unable to have our cat de-clawed and after reading the pamphlet that went along with adoption papers, that's something I definitely understand. I won't circ a son, I won't declaw a cat.
Anyway... we have a problem.
This lovely kitty is two years old and thinks she's a kitten. Her claws are sharp, her teeth bite more than a nibble and she has one eye that she likely cannot see out of. So, she often doesn't know when we're coming along and her attitude means she doesn't like to move out of the way, but I also don't know what part of it is due to her eye sight.
So besides scratching at the kids and nipping if we want to pet her for longer than 4 seconds, she's attacking our furniture.
Exhibit A:
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| Her attempt to exit the home. |
Exhibit B:
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| The "foot board" of our bed. Less than two years old. The sound also wakes us at night. |
Exhibit C:
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| The arm of our not even three year old couch. |
Suspect A:
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| Lazy cat can do a lot of damage now that she's taken off her "crate" weight! |
A friend has given us some "soft paws" and another friend recommended a squirt bottle. What are your "animal-friendly" solutions?
1 comment:
Our old cat (RIP) had this problem. He only liked one leg on the table in the kitchen and refused to scratch anywhere else. We fastened 2x4's to it because that's what he preferred to scratch on. When we got rid of the table, he freaked and started scratching everything from the corners to doorways to the rug. We ended up putting up another 2x4 to his most favored spot--a doorway in the kitchen--and he scratched it to bits. We had to keep telling him "no" if he tried anything else.
I have had cats that only use logs and ones that only use the cardboard in the past as well. Give your cat different options and you'll eventually find something she will work with and you just have to stick to it. Training a cat is like training a dog and if you give in once they won't stop.
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