Hi there. I'm hoping people can help me out. I've got 3 cats and the 2 females claw at my sofas. They're 3 years old and have done it since I got them at 8 weeks old. I've given them scratching posts as they've been mostly indoor cats until recently when we moved house and they've decided they like outsdoors now. I was hoping that would help, but it hasn't. They use the scratching posts and the garden fence a little but obviously prefer the sofas! I've tried shouting, distracting and spraying them with a water bottle. Usually just seeing the bottle coming or being shaken is enough but I can't be there in the room all of the time to stop them. The furniture is now destroyed and I've just ordered more sofas but I want to stop this behaviour before my new furniture arrives in November. They've also destroyed any wallpapered areas in the house but as I'm getting rid of that and having painted walls I'm not as worried about that. I love my cats to bits and they'revery affectionate but I NEED HELP!!!

Hi, you can get sofa leg covers to protect your new sofa however if they are scratching it everywhere? I would just keep them out of that room if possible, especially as they have been doing it for so long now it will be a hard habit to break.

Hopefully someone else will have some advice

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"Life may not be the party we hoped for,
but while we're here we might as well dance."

I heard that tin foil or clingfilm works. Cover the area they scratch in it and leave a scratching post next to it...they are unable to scratch where the foil/clingfilm is so use the post instead..eventually you can move the post away.

I've never tried it as I don't fancy having clingfilm on my sofas for a few weeks though and I think Winton is in too much of a habit now for me to try and break it.

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Owned By:

1 British Blue Kittens: Lola
1 working cocker spaniel: Bodie (Bo)

Winston the British Blue: 23/09/2008 - 26/12/2010 xx

Unless you keep them out the room, i don't think anything will work sorry to be negative x

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Get rid of the sofas...........

lol not but the move would have chanmged things for them and they probably feel the need to mark and re-scent due to the change

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I had this problem and I stopped my boy doing it by putting double sided tape on all the areas he used to scratch (corners mainly). Yep it did look a bit naff for a couple of weeks but it stopped him full stop. The idea is is that they usually sniff before they scratch and don't like the sticky sensation.

My 7 month old BSh was terrible for this and soiling on my living room rug, i was more concerned about the soiling really as i thought having cats, scratching comes with them, PAH has a product call "canac pet behave training spray" i think its more for dogs to stop them chewing things. however i would spray it where she soiled, and sure enough she didn't poop there anymore, its the smell see, and cats always smell where they are going to poop and they hate the smell of this product. it also works very very well on sofas to stop them scratching, i have a leather 3 peice and it was starting to get shredded! spray your furniture every 3 days for about 2 weeks, mine stopped after the first spray. hope this helps.