Scratching!

[Tildasservant]

help! This is really stressing me out! We adopted a lovely little black and white cat, we saw her beforehand and told the rescue that she had to be good with kids. We were directed to a one year old as she would be able to cope with our mad house lol. She is lovely.
However she is scratching my table, chairs and leather sofa, the foster home she came from said she was quite good at using the scratching post so wasn't really expecting to have this issue.
I suffer from anxiety and it's really stressing me out, I seem to follow her everywhere to catch her in the act, I can't relax :(

I'm afraid this is what cats do. Yes they often use scratching posts too and they seem to like the cardboard scratch boxes you can buy, but cats just do scratch stuff.

If you have cats you're not going to have a show home. I have throws on everything and have just stopped caring frankly.

You could try some catnip or catnip spray on the places you want her to scratch.

Yes I made a trip out today to get some, also put some dreamies near so it would entice her, (think she is immune to dreamies though!) I think I am very impatient!
I have issues with sofas, I'm on my third in 8 years (different story lol)

My old cat seemed intimidated by the mere sight of the scratching post and wouldn't go anywhere near it. Current cat loves posts. Both shredded my sofas anyway, though it's fair to say that the current puss does it less now that we have a couple of posts around the house.

You can get cardboard scratch pads online, very popular here.

But yes, cats often destroy sofas. Asbo has spoilt a £2500 duresta sofa I bought because he never showed an interest in the dfs sofa.

Obviously you cant beat the feel of real velvet to sharpen your claws on.

I feel quite blessed with my 2. They do scratch the (new) carpet a bit, but I just had to let it go. They do have a home-made 4'scratching post to have a good old stretch n scratch on, which they like.