Compromising with Cats

the ultimate lap kitty

I have two cats – one is declawed on front (I decided he was getting declawed after he laid me open for the umpteenth time just for fun because he never learned to play nice) and the other is fully clawed. They’re both indoor-only cats, which meant I had to come up with some creative ways to keep our clawed kitty, Musette, from destroying my furniture.

I tried those cardboard scratchers, carpet scratching posts, and a few other solutions. She didn’t like any of them. She liked my furniture: specifically my couch and my desk. The desk solution was easy – it was a cheap particleboard desk, and she only liked to scratch the exposed back, so I stapled cardboard in her scratching zones. She loved that.

The couch, however, was a point of contention between us. I couldn’t staple cardboard to it, and she wouldn’t stop scratching it (the “don’t scratch here” sprays don’t work on her). I was at a yardsale a couple of years ago and saw a woven sisal rug for $2. I snatched it up, thinking I’d use it for the kitchen floor. Musette had other ideas, and started scratching that too.

I had a lightbulb moment:

Put the rug on the couch.

At that point she was scratching all four corners of the couch, but had one favorite arm. I folded the rug in half and used safety pins to attach the rug to that arm.

I put obstacles around the other three corners. It worked! After a couple of months I was even able to move the obstacles.

It’s not perfectly beautiful, but it is perfect for our home.