Posted by Teresa on May 27, 19100 at 17:02:11:
We rescued our cat Eddie when he was about 6 months. We have no background on him. That was 13 months ago. Up until 2 months ago he didn't scratch furniture or doorways or anything he wasn't supposed to. He has a very large cat tree with a 3 foot covered base, sisal covered post and 3 seperate perches. This is kept in the living room. He also has a piece of carpet in the kitchen he scratches all the time. 2 months ago he started scratching at the corners of doorways, and the ends of the good couch. [Of course he won't scratch the old ugly couch!]. He has free acces to the entire house, his own bathroom for his litter box [no he isn't spoiled, he just kicks litter everywhere so we put his box in a 1/2 bath so we didn't have to see it], he's allowed on the furniture and on the beds. We have no idea why all of a sudden he started scratching. He's ruining the place! I am very opposed to declawing kittens and even more so opposed to declawing adult cats.
We have tried soft paws but it takes forever getting them on him, he gets mad, then comes back about 5 minutes later and attacks and runs. I'm at my wits ends. Our vet told us to put sheets of aluminum foil where he likes to scratch. So he finds other places to scratch. His newest one is crawling behind the couch and scratching the back of it. Apart from living in foil, we can only think of 2 choices. Declawing [which makes me cry] and making him an outside cat [which makes me cry]. Any ideas? I'm desperate!