Trying a scratch post

When I knew was going to have a cat, I decided to put up some improvised scratch posts throughout the house. The idea was good, but the cat showed remarkably little interest in them. She was more keen on the bed, the sofa, the carpet and the doormats. I was very happy with her being keen on the doormats! And I bought her a doormat all for herself. She uses that quite a lot.

I didn't mind about the bed. It's not a special bed by any means! And it lives in the extension, which means all the doors leading to it are big, so getting that (or any other) bed into that room is not a problem.

I was less keen on the carpet. That's not easy to replace! And it's expensive too. I also wasn't keen on the sofa; it's not a special sofa and it's not particularly beautiful, but it was such a hassle to get a sofa of any description into the living room, on account of the anomalously narrow door leading to it, that I really don't want her to destroy it. I tend to drape a blanket over it as that stops her scratching it. And even if she would scratch it; a blanket is a lot easier to get through the door.

Just that she was not interested in my scratch posts, of course, doesn't mean she is not interested in scratch posts at all. My friend Kate had a cat, but that cat seems to have moved in with her parents, and might not be coming back. She had a scratch post! She gave that to me. My cat immediately took to it. I just put it down in the hallway and she already had her claws in it. So it wasn't the idea of the scratch posts she didn't like; my attempts were just not good enough! And that also gave me the idea to turn the lowest post of the stairs banister into a scratch post. It would just need wrapping in sisal rope. So I bought a spool, and set to work. The cat was watching my endeavour with interests from a respectful distance. But when I was done, the only thing she was interested in was chewing on the ends of the rope. 

Later that day I did seem to hear scratching sounds coming from the direction of the stairs. And the day after I saw her use the post for what it was meant for. Success!

Under construction

Chewing on the end