How To Stop Cats From Scratching Furniture
In cats, scratching is as natural and normal as sleeping, but without the right training, it can also destroy couches, chairs, and more. Fortunately, you can redirect this behavior and save both the sofa and your bond with your cat. In this article, you’ll learn how to stop your cat scratching furniture in a healthy, safe way.
Expecting our cat to stop scratching on their own is like asking them to stop breathing. The solution is not to ask them to stop scratching but to redirect the behaviour onto appropriate substrates or scratching surfaces.
Scratching at inappropriate objects or exteriors is highly annoying for cat parents. Before confronting how to stop your cat from scratching unwanted places, let’s figure out why your cat needs to scratch our furniture instead of their own
Cats scratch for many reasons, including:
Excitement expression when we return after being absent all day, during playtime (a form of arousal), or as stress relief.
Scratching flexes many of the cat’s tendons and muscles and serves as a form of exercise. Some cats also scratch after walking or as part of a stretching sequence.
Territory marking by leaving behind visual marks through repeated scratching and by depositing chemical scent through the pads of the feet. The significance of these marks is not clear. It most likely acts as reassurance once our cat returns to investigate the spot.
Scratching also encourages the removal of a cat’s dead nail outer cover.
