If you have cats with claws, what's your furniture like?

[kristenk]

We have two cats, ages 9 and 6. They both have all of their claws. They've scratched the arms of our couches soooooooo much. Periodically, DH goes in and trims up the couch arms so it doesn't look quite so ugly, but that doesn't last long. We also try to trim the cats' claws ourselves, but, frankly, we've sort of given up b/c it didn't seem to help at all.

I would absolutely love some new furniture, but it seems pointless to buy something just to give the kitties something new to shred.

If you have cats, what's your furniture like? If your furniture is in nice condition, how on earth did that happen? Also, if you have any recommendations on types/styles/whatever of family room furniture that seems shred-proof, please let me know. I like our cats, and I'd like for them to be around a long time, but I really don't want to wait until they're gone to buy new furniture.

[jvorhis]

Both our cats are shelter cats one is declawed the other is not. When we got Sia she was about ten years old and would sometimes scratch and put pulls in the arms of our new furniture. She was not doing much damage but I told my husband that I was going to get a scratching post. He told me she probably will never use it, but she does all the time. At first we put it in front of the couch but later moved it away and she never goes after the couch anymore. They do make sprays but they don't work.

Good Luck

[TraciG]

We have a cat with claws too & my leather chair is ruined, I used to cover the leather couch with a towel & pillos & we neevr used it so I gave up, Zoey ( the cat ) wasn't supposed to be allowed on that couch but she does go in it once in a while AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, My couch with material is fine. I always say what will we do when we buy a house one day ( in an apt ) I know if we got new furniture it would be ruined too, that's the price I guess when you have a cat with claws !!!!!! I wish I got my cat declawed sometimes !!!!!!!

[SammyeGail]

Our couch and chairs look awful too. We also trim the strings when we can, like you said, it helps for a while.

At first we used double sided tape and put it on the sides, front and legs of the furniture, anywhere the cats would be scratching. It work pretty good for a while, but you have to keep changing the tape so it stays sticky on the outside to discourage to cats. Honestly, we got lazy and slacked on replacing the tape and thats how ours got messed up. The downside to this is that you have double sided tape all over your new furniture, lol!! Not very appealing, and you get stuck to it sometimes too.

I would try out the tape on your current furniture and see how your cats react to it, see if it would work well or not.

Good luck!

Samantha

[JustMe]

My couches are fabric and have an uneven pilly look (meaning the fabric is not smooth and has a texture to it). They are meant to be that way and look as good as new. I dont think you would notice any cat clawing, but for some reason my cat doesnt claw the couches much.

She prefers the moulding on the sides of my doorways. A friend just told me there is a product call;ed something like wood filler, so I plan on trying that for the doorways.

Robyn
mom to a 3 yr old from Guatemala

[mudder17]

We have 4 cats, all with their claws and we do periodic trimming on them. The study chair that is fabric (made out of a weave type material) gets clawed a little by two of our cats and definitely looks on the "fuzzy" side. The reclining love seat is made out of a ... velour type fabric? It is totally left alone and looks just fine. We also tend to keep it covered up by some fleece throws but even when parts of it are uncovered, the cats don't seem to be drawn to it. The leather chairs are untouched as well. We have a small scratching pad, a small scraching tree, and a ginormous (7 foot) scratching tree. The cats tend to scratch those things the most often, so providing them with something to scratch, PLUS keeping their claws trimmed seems to protect most of our furniture (other than the poor desk chair, which we just don't worry about anymore).


Eileen

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[mimieliza]

Our cat occaisionally scratches the couch or an antique carved table we have as an end table. She gets squirted with water when this happens, so she doesn't do it very often! We keep a spray bottle in the living room just for this purpose (and to make her get off the dining table).

We put a cardboard scratching post right next to where she likes to scratch. She loves that type of scratching post - no interest in the carpet or rope ones. We put catnip on the scratcher to make it more appealing. She'll actually scratch on demand - I just have to rub her scratcher and say, "Come scratch!" and she comes running over and starts scratching away. :)

We've been able to keep the damage to a minimum this way. We've had our cat about five years, and there's no noticeable damage to either the couch or the table despite the little bit of scratching she's done.

[SpaceGal]

Our Magnus we got when he was 6 months old. The owner trained him very well and had him using a scratching post from the get go. We make sure to have scratching posts available for him and I guess he's been really good about not scratching up the furniture. Our furniture looks fine...I suppose that' not the answer you want to hear. But if you can divert your cats to other more interesting scratching spots there's a chance.

Magnus now likes to scratch on the sisal doorway mats we have in front of the doors to the outside. We don't have a scrtaching post per say now but the mats suit him fine. He's not a climber so he's not interested in stretching upwards. Do you know if your cats prefer sisal (rope) or carpet or even cardboard scartching posts? My friend has a cat that really likes the cardboard scratchers with emery boards stuck in them.

With the arrival of DS, I've been slacking on trimming his claws so they get caught in things once in a while but that's more my fault than the cats. You can try to encourage scratching by sprinkling catnip on the target spots. I do agree with the PP about the spray bottle. I used to just pick it up and he would go running.

[kristenk]

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions!

As I was reading responses, I realized that DH and I have really slacked off when it comes to the kitties. We *did* have tape on various things at various times. We discovered that slick packing tape on the front of the couch arms worked pretty well, but DD started peeling it off and we haven't put it up again. Plus, it really wasn't very attractive. Okay, you can say that a severely scratched up couch isn't too attractive either! :)

We have one scratching post that DH and I made years ago. We've needed to refurbish it for quite some time and, ideally, I'd like to make it bigger.

We've tried a spray bottle, but our biggest scratcher (and smarter kitty) has learned that she doesn't get sprayed when we're not around. We've tried to sort of sneak the spraying so that she thinks the water is coming from the couch, but I think we were actually insulting her intelligence when we did it! Anyway, she basically reserves her scratching for overnight.

If anyone wants to echo what was said or offer more advice, I'd love to hear it. I'm feeling a bit more hopeful about the possibility of new furniture.

[daisyandacorn]

We've got a cat and a kitten, both with claws and our couch looks horrible. The arms are trashed, totally scratched up and we just let them use them as scratching posts.

Our couch is white so the pulls are really the least of it's problems, it's more the berry and pasta sauce stains that appear each and every time I've freshly washed the slipcover lol (quite the feat, it's a big L couch).

So far the only other thing that's been damaged is the dolhouse - one of the cedar shingles was torn right off when Hazel decided that it'd be fun to play on it. I covered the roof up with sheets of tinfoil and she hasn't touched it since- it might work for you but it looks pretty wacky.

Susan

[oliviasmomma]

We have two cats and our furniture looks fine. Our sofas are mission style (wood arms) and that helps. We also don't allow the kitties to be on the furniture at all. That makes a big difference because it is totally off-limits.

(We also keep them in the basement when we go to bed and when we are not home.)

That said, they have done much damage to the carpet at the top of the basement stairs. I can handle that, though!

PS the pheremone(sp, sorry!) spray works well for some kitties!

[Radosti]

I have two cats with claws and one declawed that we adopted already declawed. The declawed one goes crazy on the furniture and I believe that if he wasn't done, we'd be in trouble. Our clawed cats get regular nail trims. If I see them starting to scratch, that means they are due for a nail trim. Once I cut the nails, they don't scratch anything. I do tell people who cannot clip their cats' claws very regularly to use Soft Paws. They are little caps you glue on to their nails and they stay on for weeks. Just make sure you clip the nail before putting a cap on it.

[TraciG]

Zoey uses her cat tree BUT her claws scratch the leather from her jumping off the couch, not from sctatching on purpose

[mudder17]

This is where keeping the claws trimmed would really help.


Eileen

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[Bubbas_Momma]

I have two cats with claws. One of them never uses her claws, the other (a Siamese) sharpens/chews on anything that isn't moving. He is HORRIBLE with his claws. He once "dug" a hole in the new carpet of my apartment (probably 18-24" in diameter) down to the subfloor! I tried using the Soft Paws caps that fit over his claws. He ate them. He chewed every last one off every last claw and ate them - super glue and all.

That said, we got a microfiber couch and 2 microfiber chairs about 4 years ago. They still look new. For some reason, the cats won't claw them. So if you have an incorrigible cat like mine, microfiber might be the way to go. Hope this helps!