Conference misery::feline

    Could a few keywords such as SCRATCHING, CLAWING be added for use with
    this note?  

    We've been using one for the last year and the cats love it.  We
    actually have a couple of them and then another one made of rope.  If
    one is using a board in the living room another cat will come charging up
    and shoo him/her away and then take over - so the one removed moves on
    to the other one and cat #3 does the same thing - it's like musical
    scratching boards.  Adding the catnip is a good idea and makes it more
    attractive.  I think they're great.
    
    Giudi
                                                       

    Cheryl,
    
    My cats use those scratching boxes, and seemed to figure it out pretty
    much on their own.  Actually, now that I think back, it was more of a
    "monkey see, monkey do" sort of thing.  You know, the intelligent cat
    scratches the box and the dumb ones look on in amazement like, 'Oh!  So
    that's what it is for!!"
    
    Try scratching on it yourself to see if they get the hint.  :^) :^)
    
    -Roberta
    

    Roberta, I tried scratching the cardboard box and all the cats looked
    at me like I was crazy!  If one of them would take the initiative to
    scratch at the box, the others might get the hint.  Guess we have three
    dumb cats on our hands!  :^)

    I'm content with the fact that they don't scratch any of the furniture
    but I want to be sure to provide them with a few different places to
    "scratch with approval".  At least the cardboard boxes are low to the
    ground and can easily be hidden out of sight when guests are around. 
    Sure beats the mangy looking scratching post in the corner of the
    living room!
    
    What is the average life span of one of these scratching boxes anyway?

    
    	I've got one that's been laying around for 4 or 5 months...It
    	did take them a couple of weeks to figure out how to use them
    	at first, but yours will figure it out on their own, too. I also
    	made a post out of a heavy cardboard roll (it had material/cloth
    	on it originally), and roll of sisal rope, and a hot glue gun. I
    	just glued and wrapped as high as it would go, they love it and
    	use it all the time. It took me about 15 minutes to make...
    
    	The Christmas Tree Shop in Shrewsbury had the cardboard boxes for	
    	.69 each a couple of months ago, don't know if they still have 
    	them...
    
    	Sherry
    

    Of my four, only Charlie really uses it.  The long lost Robbie would 
    enjoy a good strop but the rest look at it like it's cheap cat food.
    I opened up the folds and put the catnip deep in the folds so that they
    had to scratch at it to get at the good stuff.  But with fresh catnip
    in a pot on the floor (actually 3 pots) who needs to work for the
    stuff.
    

    I have a scratching box near the kids' feeding area.  And they use it
    with a "purpose."  Since the two boys always eat first, the girls use
    the scratching box while they're waiting to eat.  When the boys are
    done eating, they use the scratching box right after they eat.

    
    I have one too, and I find that I get a different reaction from all
    four of my cats.
    
    Suki uses it as a bed and sprawls across the whole thing....
    Bear scratches with a vengeance....
    Cyrano is determined to just destroy the little box that the 
      corrugated scratch bar is in,
    and Zuzu just stands by and watches....she almost is in disdain
    of the whole thing...  (maybe she wants one from Bloomingdales?)
    
    Nancy

Hey, Cheryl, I'll send Zelda over to teach your Zelda and Chubs and Lea what
to do with this.  Zelda thinks here scratch box is the best thing in the world.
Bob has absolutely nothing to do with it.  Of course, that probably has to do
with the fact that Bob won't have anything to do with Zelda either...

Ours has lasted since last summer although I must admit that it is starting
to look very shabby.  I was thinking of getting one for the living room as
well so that Zelda might leave my chair and couch alone.

Ellen

the scratch box at our house is the "catnip dosing center"...I load it up
with catnip each saturday for everyone's enjoyment.  All cats rub around on
it for awhile...and then Missy Hana takes up residence on it, sitting as if
to hatch it, and there she stays until I settle down after dinner is cleaned
up...several hours.  Even though we have two cats with claws, they only do
cat trees, no carboard boxes, no furniture...just cat trees, thank you.  I
have some furry drug addicts on my hands now...they start milling around the
scratch box around 3:00 in the afternoon....waiting for a fix....oh well, they
can't have chocolate.  8^}

    Wonder if catnip brownies would do the trick?  :^)
    
    All three still ignore the cardboard box.  I wonder if they'd pay
    attention to it if we moved the location of the box?

    I have a Bizzy Kitty brand scratching pad.  My girls love it.  The
    little guy hasn't quite figure it out yet but since he's so good at
    using the scratching post, there isn't a problem.  It came with a bag
    of catnip.
    
    Amelia likes to lounge on the pad.  She rests the front part of her 
    body on the box and scratches on it periodically.  Bailey makes 
    special trips to it and scratches vigorously for a little while and
    walks away.  Carrie doesn't use it quite as often.  She likes to use
    the little carpet covered house in the bedroom.  When I add fresh
    catnip the all rub and roll all over it.
    
    I tried to show Onyx what to do with the box the other day.  I put
    him on it and pressed his paw between thumb and forefinger gently
    until the claws came out then I stuck them into the pad.  He got
    the idea and scratched for a few seconds and I haven't seem him
    try it again since then.  It was only a momentary revelation, then
    it was gone, never to return again until mom tries the teaching
    method again.
    
    Jan

    We were finally successful with getting the cats to use the cardboard
    scratching box.  A week after aquiring it, we put the box behind the
    couch (in a more private spot) and voila!

    My babies drag their cardboard scratching post all over the house.  I'm
    on the third one in two years, the first one was shredded.  I buy the
    ones with catnip imbedded.  Cosmic Cat.  There are several other brands
    on the market.  
    
    My biggest cat, Patterson, lays on it to keep the other cats from using
    it when he's inside.  He's not the heavyest, but he's the biggest,
    Norwegian Forest Cat.  So he covers it quite well.  
    
    Candy

    I have another question... Houdini is really great, has almost no bad
    habits, except he claws the carpeting on the stairs mercilessly... 
    to the point it is now getting that fuzzy look on two or three places. 
    Usually just as we're about to go to sleep, we hear the sound of 
    claw pulling, then he comes and flops on the bed all worn out.
    He's an outdoor cat, but we found out quickly that he doesn't like 
    New England winters one bit... so doesn't spend much time outside, and
    claws more because of it.  I bought one of those fancy little
    scratching boxes scented with catnip... he loves it, rubs his neck all
    over it, but seems to have no idea about scratching it... so $7 wasted
    on a large catnip toy!
    
    All the advertisements I've seen for these scratching boxes, scratching
    posts, etc. say that once you get one they will never claw the
    carpet again... but no luck!  Any ideas on how to get him to start 
    using it?  I've tried a scratching motion with my own nails, but 
    he just "fuzzes" my hand when I do it.
    
    Nancy

	Nancy,

	Have you tried taking Houdini's paws and raking them over the 
	scratching pad?  Squeeze them gently so his claws come out first.	
	Most likely he'll catch on, but I have never been able to train
	my cats to scratch in one place only...I'm not home enough to
	consistantly show them each time they scratch in a "bad" spot
	where they should be scratching instead!

	Good luck!

	Laura

    I've had good luck with initially putting catnip on top of a scratching
    post (and having a post that is tall enough and heavy/stable enough so
    that it doesn't move around and frighten the cats).  My cats like
    carpeting on posts, but some cats prefer sisal (the rope-looking
    stuff).  Some cats, like my Little Bit, do prefer horizontal surfaces to
    scratch on.  LB used to shred my carpet until I brought home one of
    those tunnel type carpet covered horizontal cylinders, now he hops onto
    the top of that and scratches away.  Holly thinks cardboard boxes
    (copy paper boxes) are the best scratching items.
    

    
    The best thing we've found for indoor scratching is a BACK side
    of a carpet. We just got a piece of remnant, rolled it up jelly roll
    fashion with the back facing out and just left it on the floor. 
    The rolled up carpet is about 3' by 3', big enough for a cat to
    stand on and scratch. The back side does not get worn out easily
    and there is no pieces of yarn to pick up. When one side does get
    worn out, we just roll it up in a different way so that a different
    side faces up. The cats prefer that over lumber leftovers and
    scratching posts.
    
    
    Eva

    I bought a triangular shaped, roped covered scratching post for my
    two cats.  At first they didn't seem to know what it was about.  So,
    I tried rubbing (gently) their claws on it.  That made them sort of
    get the idea.  After that, whenever I saw them scratching on the post,
    I praised them highly.  Telling them they were the most wonderful
    cats (or cat).  Whenever I see them scratch something they're not
    supposed to, I quickly say no, then praise them for stopping.  Not
    too much, though, because, it seems, just like kids, sometimes
    they're in the mood for negative attention.  This seems to work, so
    that 90% of the time they scratch on the post (at least when I'm
    around).

    I had exactly the same problem. My cat loved to scratch the carpeting
    on the stairs.  I went through a number of scratching 'options' before
    I found one he'd use.  He didn't like the cardboard box with catnip
    thingy (I think because it moved).  He didn't like a carpet covered
    tube thing because it fell over once and scared him.  He didn't like
    the carpet covered boards that you can hang over a doorknob because
    they moved too much.  I finally got him a pyramid shaped scrathing post with
    carpet on it.  He loves it.  It doesn't move much (if you put it
    on carpet) and it never falls over.  It took hime a while to decide
    it was better than the stairs though.  Some things I did:
    
     1) I put it right by the stairs so that it was in a place where
        he was used to scratching.
    
     2) I made sure the carpet on the pyramid was a very different
        color from the carpeting on the stairs. (Stairs are cream,
        pyramid is dark grey.)
    
     3) Taking his paws and "making" him scratch on the post didn't
        work.  He got mad.  Instead, I put catnip on it and kept
        tossing his toys so they landed on or near it.  Eventually,
        he accidently scratched it.  Doing that a few times seemed
        to hook him on it.
    
      4) Once he was using the pyramid fairly consistently, I rented
         a "steam" cleaner from the grocery store and shampood the
         stairs.  I'd heard that when they scratch something they
         mark it and that they tend to continue scratching places
         they've marked.  I figured the shampooing would make the
         stairs smell neutral and his pyramid be nice and smelly to
         him. (I can't smell it -- but he can.)
    
      5) He still uses the stairs once in a while.  But 95% of the
         time he uses his pyramid.
    
      Good luck!
                       

    Besides having one of those huge cat trees,  I also have a piece of
    carpet flipped upside down with the end stuck under a heavy piece of
    furniture to stabilize it (they dont like things that move on them)
    and boy they use that up real good.  In fact, they shred it.  They love
    the feel of the backing, like sisal rope.  My guys never scratch the 
    furniture anymore since I got the tree,  I think having more than one
    cat helps too.  They learn from each other.  The piece of rug thing
    started when I had used a piece under a very heavy box that I didn't
    want to damage the floor.  The part that was sticking out, they kept
    shredding.  So,  it has kind of become another one of the unusual piece
    of decor in my "cat house".
    
    D

    Meoldy, the Maine coon kitten, likes to shred the back of the dining
    room chair my husband normally sits in.  I think she likes it because
    it smells like him, or something - she is really crazy about Paul.  She
    is a real stubborn kitten as kitties go - if you yell at her when she
    misbheaves, she just looks at you like "I know, but I'm going to do
    this anyways, human servant!"  You have to actually physically remove
    her from whever she is misbehaving.  She'll scratch the cat tree and
    her scratching post, but that doesn't stop her from liking that one
    chair.  Maybe I ought to spray "No!" on it?  That is supposed to smell
    bad to cats, and maybe then it won't smell like Paul.
    
    Good thing I like cats...  endearing little nuisances, aren't they?
    
    /Charlotte

    Hi again,
    
    Thanks for all the suggestions... I especially laughed at .5... 
    describing all the different types of scratchy-things your cat
    *doesn't* like, because they slide, move or whatever.  Houdini gets
    upset if something moves when he's not wanting it to.  I tried all the
    suggestions here, such as gently rubbing his paws over the scratching
    box.  And, it's scented with catnip, plus I put more on the top... 
    to no avail.  I also tried pushing out his claws a bit, he got angry at
    that.  
    
    I like the pyramid idea, but have never seen one... did you make it,
    or can you tell me where you got it?
    
    Thanks everyone!
    Nancy

    Where do you live?  I've seen them at the pet supply store in the
    same strip mall as Purity on the Daniel Webster Highway in Nashua, NH.
    
    This is *not* the one next to Home Depot.  Sorry, I forget what
    its called.  Maybe someone else knows?

    Yes, Petstuff is it.