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Old May 21st, 2016, 10:21 PM
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Reg Reg is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Thunder Bay, ON
Posts: 462
hello t3ch:

Welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear about the problems you're having with your little guy destroying your furniture.
I have a multi cat household and from time to time, one of them might take a swipe at some of the furniture. Something I think you're lacking is plenty of scratching posts and apparatus.
2 scratching posts is definitely not enough. We live in a very small bungalow with 3 cats and they have 5 scratching devices on the main floor. One post is 4 feet tall made of sisel - spelling - rope, which I like. The other is a cat tree
6 feet tall with a slumber house on top, carpet covered - cats like to climb it but not scratch on it. They have 2 corrugated cardboard scratchers that they like - one is a turbo scratcher with a ball in it that they play with, and one is a flat board covered in sisel rope.
I would advise that you get some more scratching things. It appears that the problem could be territorial, causing the little lad to go after the furniture rather than the posts.
Something else that I have found very handy in stopping marking by scratching is Feliway phermone spray. It can be bought at a pet store. I prefer the product from the vet's office cause it's a little stronger.
A couple of light sprays on the areas where the scratching is happening, seems to work quite well for me. I find a squirt bottle of little or no value other than to upset the cat.
Something else I found that also works is enzyme cleaner - non scented type applied to leatherette, kitchen chairs and it stopped one of our cats from ripping it up.
Here are some articles that might help shed some light

http://www.pets.ca/cats/tips/tip-27-...atching-posts/

http://www.littlebigcat.com/article-index-2/

Scroll down in Little big cats to "declawing alternatives". Dr. Jean Hofve has a list of things in that article that might help to alleviate your dilemna of cat scratching your furniture. She also has some good articles on declawing as well.
Hopefully you can find some answers here so you do not have to go the declawing route, especially at his age.

As an afterthought. I have found that rubbing a little catnip into the scratching post and corrugated scratchers, helps to attract the crew especially when the posts are new.
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Last edited by Reg; May 21st, 2016 at 10:55 PM. Reason: afterthought
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