We are having a new sofa. How to train the cats not to scratch

[catweasel44]

Our cats have scratched our old leather sofa to death.

It hasn't really been a problem as it was old and we didn't really care.

We are now renovating and buying new furniture.

New sofa is delivered in 12 weeks. Is it possible to stop them scratching it or scratch something else?

I’d also like to know this. I’ve tried and failed to teach mine not to scratch.

I’ve got a scratcher too. Won’t go near the scratching post but the sofa....

I did see some spray you can use to deter them. No idea if it works though. Like you, Our sofa is quite old, so I leave him to scratch it.

You can get sisal mats that attach to the arms of the chair. I didn’t try them incase it made the cats think it was ok to scratch furniture. Result is the arms of my beautiful one year old suite are absolutely trashed! Wish I’d covered them...

I think the secret is many other more attractive scratching posts and treats when they use them.

That said our sofa looks like shit so I'm probably not the best to advise!!

I bought a spray but doesn’t work. Younger cat is the worst offender and sneaky 😡 We have coconut matting in the hall by the front door and she does go there but I still see her sneaking to the sofa grr.

We have bought virtually all the scratching posts, mats etc on the market. Unfortunately for our cat nothing comes close to the sofa for scratching purposes

I sprayed my sofas with Impulse!!

Kept the hairy fuckers away nicely!!

Water pistol works nicely. Also when caught in the act, my cat was taken over to his scratch mat to be shown the correct place to scratch.

I had a fabric sofa that mine wrecked. They've not touched the leather one!

I blew on my cats face when she scratched. It worked but she is timid.

I don't know if you can teach cats not to scratch sofa. I read somewhere that they do it for attention, so shouting doesn't work. A friend put a table against the corner of her new sofa and that seemed to work. Before that her sofa was old so she didn't care. Try covering the corners, so if they scratch it's not damaging the sofa.

I put throws over the arms and backs of furniture they're inclined to scratch.

We made MDF covers that sat on the sofa arms (it was very complicated). A mere six years and a house move later and the cats have seemingly forgotten that the sofa was a great place to scratch.

My cat is a terrible scratcher- you should see the carpets in our house. HOWEVER, when I got new sofas, I covered the places where she used to scratch the old sofas (corners etc) with double-sided sticky tape. They don’t like the feel of it. I left it on there for a few weeks to discourage her, then took it off, and she’s really never gone near them. Maybe you could try that?

Double sided sticky tape in the places where they want to scratch. After the first time of getting their paws on it, they won't try again!

They will however move and scratch at a new spot so make sure and have plenty of tape. You can remove it all eventually when they have been trained out of scratching the sofa

Oh complete cross-post Shatter

Ha heymammy! It really does work, doesn’t it? You’re right though, they do move onto other things, but it’s never the scratching post!

I came on here to say double sided tape too. Or spraying with water. Scratching on forbidden places is definitely an attention thing so try not to let them see you react.