Expert: Kate Tilmouth - 12/10/2008

Question
QUESTION: I just adopted a 2 year old spayed female russian blue cat from the humane society.  She is wanting to claw the furniture and the area rugs that I have on my hardwood floors.  What can I do to stop her from doing this.  I have a clawing post with catnip on it but she does not seem to be interested in it.

ANSWER: Hi
I get asked this question a lot and found that it was best to write a article about it and give people some solutions to the problem there rather than try and explain it here. In fact I several pages, please can I ask that you read them as they will be able to fully eaplain the problem and the possible solutions.

Can I just add. Please do not resort to declawing your cat. It is banned in many countries and is cruel as it is equivalent to having your fingers amputated at the knuckle and can be very painful and can cause problems for the cat later. I'm sure you wouldn't, hope you don't mind me saying it.

Any way here are my pages about furniture scratching etc.


http://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-scratching.html

http://www.our-happy-cat.com/scratching-post.html

http://www.our-happy-cat.com/claws.html

Best wishes Kate

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: My 2 year old russian blue female cat that I adopted around Thanksgiving is a very sweet cat.  She cuddles up and sleeps with me all night until 4:30am every morning she decides it is time to get up.  I have to get up at 5:30am every morning to get ready for work and don't want an interruption in my morning sleep.  But I still want to have the close bond with her by having her sleep with me.  The bedroom door is open so she can go out to eat or drink or use the litter box but she gets right at my head, purrs, and kneads my hands if they are exposed, which of course leaves puncture wounds.  Any suggestions on her waking me up short of closing my door and not allowing her to sleep with me?

Answer
Hi
sorry no there is no way to stop this apart from closing the door on her. My own cat does this every morning and we have just decided to put up with it.

Cats have a very different timetable to ours and night time is their most active time. They also like to sleep and eat in smaller time spans to us.

You could try feeding her a good size meal befoe you go to bed but there are no garantees.

best wishes Kate
http://www.our-happy-cat.com