Cease Your Cat From Scratching Furnishings With These Science-Backed Methods

Scientists are working onerous to unravel certainly one of life’s best issues: a home cat with a foul behavior of tearing up the furnishings.

In a brand new examine Wednesday, researchers have recognized a number of key elements that seem to foretell undesirable cat scratching. These embody having younger youngsters in the home, the type of playtime they get, and their total stage of stress. A minimum of a few of these facets may be tweaked to maintain your cat’s clawing in verify, the scientists say.

The examine was carried out by veterinary scientists from Turkey, Portugal, and France; it was additionally funded by the French animal well being firm Ceva Santé Animale. The crew had over 1,200 cat house owners in France fill out an internet survey, which included questions on their cat’s dwelling atmosphere, every day routine, and scratching behaviors.

General, the crew discovered that some cats have been naturally extra liable to scratching, equivalent to felines that have been described as “aggressive” or “disruptive” by their house owners. However there have been different outdoors elements linked to undesirable cat scratching, notably having youngsters at dwelling, taking part in with the cat for lengthy intervals of time, and customarily being extra energetic at evening.

“It underscores the multifaceted nature of undesirable scratching conduct and emphasizes the significance of comprehensively understanding each the person traits of the cat and its atmosphere to successfully deal with this conduct,” the researchers wrote about their findings, published Wednesday in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

Clearly, having younger youngsters or a grouchier cat aren’t issues that house owners can change on a whim. However some issues recognized by the crew level to emphasize as a significant exterior issue for cat scratching that may be higher managed. An excessive amount of playtime without delay, for instance, can develop into overly stimulating for a cat. Added stress might additionally clarify why having youngsters round is linked to cat scratching as properly, although the scientists say extra analysis is required to know for sure.

So discovering methods to cut back your cat’s stress ought to then assist minimize down on their undesirable scratching, they are saying. This could embody ensuring your cat has loads of nooks and crannies to loosen up in with out being disturbed, in addition to excessive spots from which they’ll perch and observe their kingdom. You may need to additionally area out your playtime into quick bursts of exercise that extra mimic pure searching conduct. And from the survey information, the crew discovered that leaving out scratching posts in locations that cats go to steadily appeared to assist maintain them from clawing different extra valuable furnishings.

“Our findings may also help caregivers handle and redirect scratching to acceptable supplies, which might assist foster a extra harmonious residing atmosphere for each cats and their caregivers,” stated lead writer Yasemin Salgirli Demi̇rbas, a veterinary researcher at Ankara College, in a statement from Frontiers, publishers of the journal.

Implementing these findings might defend your favourite possessions. Simply don’t let your cat catch you studying this—except you’re prepared to elucidate why their favourite couch is all of the sudden off-limits.