Is your cat tearing your furniture to pieces? Is he driving you to distraction tearing up the legs of your favorite table until they look like they’ve been in the Texas chainsaw massacre? Are you considering de-clawing your cat?
Almost all cats love to scratch. It’s natural for them to do so and helps remove some of the dead nail material on their claws. It also helps them leave some scent around the house to mark their territory, after all they don’t know that you’re not letting rival cats into the house.
If you plan to try and stop your cat from clawing the furniture then you should know that you’re backing a loser. You can scold him, you can punish him, you can throw him outside or smack his paws till your hands hurt and chances are good that it won’t do anything at all. He will still scratch the legs of your favorite table and drive you to distraction.
Eventually cat owners who are subject to these problems reach, in some cases, the stage where they are considering de-clawing their cat. Ce-clawing is the removal of the claws and a part of the bone in the toe and is a serious surgical procedure. It’s expensive to undertake and the pain to the owner is matched by the pain to the cat who has to walk around on injured paws for some time before they heal.
Cats do some very important things which require claws, including running, stretching, climbing trees and digging in a litter box.
And of course if your cat is attacked by a dog then claws are his only source of defence. But he can’t defend himself with no claws.
There are some much cheaper and much less painful solutions to cat scratching than cat de-clawing. A cat scratching post can cost less than $20 and once you’ve trained him to use his scratching post your problem is over.
A cat scratching pole is a piece of dedicated cat furniture that is intended to provide him with a place to scratch where he can do all the damage he likes. Whilst it can sometimes take some effort to train him to use it there is no doubt that buying a scratching post and training him to use it is way less stressful and less expensive than serious surgery.
There are many countries where cat de-clawing is illegal. It is expensive and unnecessary and painful for the cat and the need for it is removed simply by buying cat scratching posts and training your cat properly.
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