Are we mad to get this carpet with cats?

[boredwfh]

Hi, looking for opinions as to whether we are completely mad to get this herringbone loop style carpet on our stairs & landing with 2 kittens. So far although they have tried claw the sofa they’ve not done any damage to them & we bat them away. Anyone with experience of having cats with this type of carpet & if you do how do you stop them ruining it?

We’ve had similar and she hasn’t bothered with it. She likes the softer carpet that she properly lays into.

We have two cats. Neither are destructive, but one is an (absolutely delightful) idiot and doesn’t know how to retract his claws fully so is forever getting stuck on the carpets, our clothes, blankets etc and there are pulls on our carpet on the stairs and in the hall from where he’s accidentally gotten caught running up and down.

If you’d like them to remain perfect, don’t do it!

I have a similar carpet, and Tobias LOVES it. Tells me it's the best scratching surface ever, even better than a corrugated cardboard scratcher. His number one favorite thing to do is lie at the top of the stairs and reach down to scratch the vertical area just below him.

Girlcat despises it as a scratching surface, give her a sisal rope or panel any day.

I have similar and mine ignore it. Why? Because they shred the footstool in the living room instead.

You’re mad to get any carpet with cats.. especially one with a grain. We spent thousands and thousands on ours (large home) and they’ve gone to town on it, keep going for the same spots. Don’t waste your money.

I’ve got one similar texture. Penelope does scratch it but doesn’t damage it In the same way she would if it was a looped carpet

Our 2 cats like nothing more than plucking carpets. They have wrecked our stair carpet which already needed replacing . We are going to remove the carpet, paint the treads and out stair grips on each step. It shouldn’t be too noisy because we don’t wear shoes in the house.

Never had an issue with cats on carpets, sofas or anything because they were taught not to! And had some sort of allowed scratching thingie in every single room, esp where they like to sleep. Noticed my last cat wanted to scratch as soon as he woke up when we first rehomed him, started on the carpet then I plonked a cardboard scratcher and he never touched the carpet again.

Our lovely herringbone loop was down for one day before Dcat unravelled a good few inches by scratching at our bedroom door. To stop further damage, we have stacks of heavy books permanently positioned across the threshold. I could kick myself every time I step over them 😂

I'm assuming you mean the type of pile where, if one loop gets pulled/snagged, it propagates...?

We have that type of carpet on the stairs and we're going to have to get rid of it because our two cats have created several bald lines/tracks across the whole width of the stairway. They don't claw any of our area rugs or furniture but definitely consider the stairs to be fair game.

If it's not the same type (i.e. pulling one single loop doesn't detach a much longer thread) you're probably fine 😀

It’s not just the using it as a scratching post, it’s when they throw up or have diarrhoea and you can’t clean it up 🤢🤮 between the loops…..

Our cat is a carpet destroyer on the stairs. We deliberately went for a ‘pet proof’ one rather than a looped one that I really wanted and it is still fucked. My plan for next time is to get the one I want and buy extra to replace the carpet on the bottom step repeatedly because she only seems to love a couple of particular steps.

Our previous cat would use the armchair and the carpets as scratching posts, but wouldn’t go near her actual scratching post. Sadly she had to be pts last year and our new cat (adult from rescue centre) uses the scratching post and doesn’t touch the carpets or furniture. Just what each individual cat likes I think