Stop Your Cat From Scratching Furniture With These Science-Backed Strategies

Scientists are working arduous to unravel considered one of life’s biggest issues: a home cat with a nasty behavior of tearing up the furnishings.

In a brand new examine Wednesday, researchers have recognized a number of key elements that seem to foretell undesirable cat scratching. These embrace having younger youngsters in the home, the type of playtime they get, and their total stage of stress. At the least a few of these elements may be tweaked to maintain your cat’s clawing in test, the scientists say.

The examine was carried out by veterinary scientists from Turkey, Portugal, and France; it was additionally funded by the French animal well being firm Ceva Santé Animale. The workforce had over 1,200 cat homeowners in France fill out an internet survey, which included questions on their cat’s residence setting, day by day routine, and scratching behaviors.

Total, the workforce discovered that some cats have been naturally extra vulnerable to scratching, akin to felines that have been described as “aggressive” or “disruptive” by their homeowners. However there have been different outdoors parts linked to undesirable cat scratching, significantly having youngsters at residence, taking part in with the cat for lengthy durations of time, and customarily being extra lively at evening.

“It underscores the multifaceted nature of undesirable scratching conduct and emphasizes the significance of comprehensively understanding each the person traits of the cat and its setting to successfully deal with this conduct,” the researchers wrote about their findings, printed Wednesday in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

Clearly, having younger youngsters or a grouchier cat aren’t issues that homeowners can change on a whim. However some issues recognized by the workforce level to emphasize as a significant exterior issue for cat scratching that may be higher managed. An excessive amount of playtime without delay, for instance, can turn into overly stimulating for a cat. Added stress might additionally clarify why having youngsters round is linked to cat scratching as properly, although the scientists say extra analysis is required to know for sure.

So discovering methods to scale back your cat’s stress ought to then assist lower down on their undesirable scratching, they are saying. This could embrace ensuring your cat has loads of nooks and crannies to chill out in with out being disturbed, in addition to excessive spots from which they will perch and observe their kingdom. You may need to additionally area out your playtime into quick bursts of exercise that extra mimic pure searching conduct. And from the survey knowledge, the workforce discovered that leaving out scratching posts in locations that cats go to continuously appeared to assist maintain them from clawing different extra treasured furnishings.

“Our findings might help caregivers handle and redirect scratching to applicable supplies, which might assist foster a extra harmonious dwelling setting for each cats and their caregivers,” mentioned lead writer Yasemin Salgirli Demi̇rbas, a veterinary researcher at Ankara College, in a assertion from Frontiers, publishers of the journal.

Implementing these findings might defend your favourite possessions. Simply don’t let your cat catch you studying this—except you’re prepared to clarify why their favourite couch is abruptly off-limits.