Modern Cat Scratching Post
Are cats incabable of learning?
My cat loves to scratch furniture, and she has never in her life scratched any of the actual scratchers I have bought for her, from vertical posts to the horizontal turbo scratcher. I have tried getting things of the same shape or same material as the furniture, with and without catnip. I've tried placing her posts prominently in the room, or right in front of the parts of the furniture she loves to destroy. But she will not/ can not learn! What can I do? At this point, she probably thinks that any scratching equals getting in trouble, since she can't understand the difference between her post and my furniture.
If Pavlov had tried studying cats rather than dogs, I doubt whether modern psychology or behaviorism would exist.
He actually did study both. And they do actually learn, but just like us, if it's not presented in a way they can learn, they're not going to learn.
Cats are willfull sometimes, but with patience, they get that you're not giving up.
Like when my cat eats. She'll eat one bite and then leave the rest.
I pick her up and put her in front of her food. She walks away. I put her back. She walks away. I put her back. This carries on for over two minutes, then she's like "Oh for **** sakes!!!!"...and eats. Same thing with scratching.
Have you tried valerian instead of datnip? It's worth a try since 10-30% of adult cats don't respond to catnip, I'm sure you know, and there's a good chance she'll go for the valerian.
Here's another way - how about when she scratches, put her on the allowed scratch surface and the petting her ie making her knead! Or playing with her at the post, ie causing her nails to catch into it somewhere!
It's important to actually praise them too, half of it is admonishing (ie stern NO, shake a tin with pennies in it at them, squirt with water). You may want to have your furniture cleaned to get her scent off it as well, as that is just pulling her back into it.
If it continues, perhaps take her into one room where there's very little to do BUT use it. Water, food, scratching post and litter tray. Just let her be in there, covering everything you can with double-sided tape that she is not allowed to have a go at. Also, tinfoil works well with this. You can pin it to the backs of chairs or any part of them, etc. Double-sided tape works well too.
Remember that whatever you give her has to allow for her to do a FULL stretch of her entire body.
Have you tried nailtips, or perhaps clipping her nails weekly?
Just putting out a Cat Scratching post is just part of the solution. But just putting it out there as an extra object is not going to work unless she knows that she is going to end up there every time she disobeyes.
Don't try and show her how to scratch, she knows full well how to, it's just the 'where' that's under contention.
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