Cat Training Tips, Scratching

There are some things you will want your cat to learn. If you plan on living peacefully with your cat, you will need to teach him or her how to live in your house and be well behaved. Things like scratching, biting, licking, jumping, urination, and more are not necessarily acceptable. There are some things you can do to limit these behaviors so that you do not constantly have to fend off your cat when company comes over.

Scratching

You already know that scratching is a normal part of cat behavior. Some people feel that de-clawing their cat is a good way to stop your cat from using his or her claws to harm themselves or their furniture. However, de-clawing is not a very humane way to deal with this simple issue.

Your first step in dealing with a cat that likes to scratch is to give your cat some healthy alternatives. Do you have some scratching posts in the house? If not, you definitely need to consider getting some.

If you only have one post, try getting several.

If you have several scratching posts, but your cat is still scratching up everything in the home, you may need to use some other methods. Your cat may not find the new scratching posts appealing, so you may need to make them more enticing.

First, make sure the post is where your cat loves to scratch the most. Buying 10 scratching posts but putting them all in dark corners will not solve your problem. Your cat is marking territory, so put the posts in those special spots. Use rewards when your cat uses one of the posts. If cats associate good things with the post, it will get used more often. You can even try tying a favorite toy to the post for
them to chase.

Also, you can put a post right next to the cat's bed, because that is when they usually like to scratch the most. If you are still seeing problems, you can also use a spray bottle to rescue you.

First try to remove cat odors from the areas with an odor remover, and then use a citrus spray. Cats do not like the smell of citrus, and they will usually avoid those areas. You can also use a spray bottle filled with water to spray him or her every time your cat returns to the area to scratch again.

A noisemaker will also work in this circumstance. If none of this works, you may just want to keep your cat's nails trimmed or use special nail caps. The caps will not keep your cat from scratching, but they will minimize the damage your cat can inflict on you or your belongings

Michael Moyssidis has been a devoted cat owner for many years. To learn more Cat Training tips, you can visit http://catcareinfosite.com