How to Stop a Cat Scratching the Furniture (For Good)

The sofa arm goes first, usually. Then the stair carpet.

Worth being clear at the outset: you're not going to stop this. Scratching is maintenance, exercise and communication all at once, and a cat prevented from doing it will do it anyway somewhere worse. What you can do is make one surface obviously better than the sofa.

Why cats scratch

Three jobs at once. It strips the worn outer sheath off the claws, exposing the sharp layer underneath. It gives a full-body stretch through the shoulders and spine, which is why cats often scratch immediately after waking. And it marks: visibly, through the shredded surface, and chemically, through scent glands in the paw pads.

That last point explains the sofa specifically. Cats mark prominent objects in the middle of their territory, near where the household gathers. A scratching post hidden behind a door fails the location test before a cat has even looked at it.

What makes a post work

Two specifications account for most rejected posts, and both are easy to check before buying.

Tall enough for a full stretch

Measure your cat from the floor to the tips of its front paws while it's stretched up against a wall or a door frame. Add ten centimetres. For an average adult cat that lands around 75 to 80 cm, and a great many posts sold are 45 to 50 cm.

A post too short to stretch on delivers the claw maintenance and none of the stretch, so the cat keeps using the sofa arm, which is exactly tall enough.

Heavy enough not to move

A post that wobbles when a cat puts its weight into it will be abandoned after one or two attempts. Cats don't get a second opinion on this. Look for a wide, weighted base, and push the top of the post hard in the shop or before assembly. If it rocks, it's going to fail.

Vertical or horizontal?

Watch what your cat currently ruins. A cat destroying the sofa arm and the door frame is a vertical scratcher. A cat shredding the rug and the doormat wants a horizontal or angled surface, and will ignore a vertical post no matter how good it is.

Plenty of cats do both, at different times of day. Providing one of each is cheap insurance.

Material

• Sisal rope: firm, shreds satisfyingly, lasts. The default choice for vertical posts.
• Corrugated cardboard: cheap, very popular with cats, makes a mess and needs replacing every few months.
• Carpet: avoid. It teaches the cat that carpet is a scratching surface, and your stairs are carpet.
• Bare wood or a log: works well for some cats, closest to a tree trunk, and won't suit every room.

Placement, which is the actual fix

Put the new post directly beside the furniture the cat is already scratching. Touching it, if possible. Not across the room, not in the hall, not where it looks tidiest.

Once the cat is reliably using it, you can move it a few centimetres every few days towards where you'd rather it lived. Move it too fast and the cat goes back to the sofa.

Add one near where the cat sleeps as well. The post-nap stretch-and-scratch is close to reflexive, and a post within a couple of metres of the bed catches it.

Making the sofa less appealing

1. 1Clean the scratched area thoroughly with an enzymatic cleaner. Scent marks are self-reinforcing, so removing them lowers the pull.
2. 2Cover it temporarily. Double-sided tape or a smooth throw over the arm makes the texture unrewarding for a few weeks while the habit shifts.
3. 3Make the post more attractive. Rub catnip into it, or use a pheromone spray on the post specifically.
4. 4Reward use. A treat the moment the cat uses the post, for the first week or two, moves things along noticeably.

Trim the tips of the front claws every few weeks as well. It doesn't stop the behaviour and it does reduce what the claws do to fabric while you're moving the habit across.