Do you see what I did there?  This is a post about my cats scratching.  So it’s a scratching post.  Ha!  I amuse myself so much.

I have a problem with one of my cats.  The one we call Lump.  She has always been the nervier of the two, but since we moved to this house she has become a lot worse.  She hates going outside – she’ll actually run and hide if I open an outside door when she’s around; she constantly stares out of the windows looking worried; and now she’s started scratching the walls.

This is a perfect example of the face she pulls when sitting on the window sill:

Unfortunately, as this is a rental property, this isn’t terribly helpful.  The wallpaper in our living/dining room is padded and looks a bit like tongue-and-groove panelling, painted white.  Now it looks more like someone has glued shredded paper maché all over the walls… badly.  Or in other spots, it looks like someone has taken a pen knife to the padded bits.

We tried blocking her access to the first area (Exhibit A), but she moved to a different area (Exhibit B) where she has now removed a huge chunk of paper and you can see down to the plaster beneath.  Now she has started on Exhibit C. We have FOUR types of scratching post from huge to small to hangy-uppy carpet things, but they don’t get used.  Believe me I have spent hours holding her front paws against it, saying “See?  Scratchy scratchy!” in a sing-song voice while manoeuvring the cat’s paws up and down the post.  Oh yes I have.

I constantly tell her off and a stern “NO” usually means she’ll run away, as does a squirt of water, but I’m not there for 8 hours of the day and every day I come home from work, there’ll be another pile of what looks like dandruff on the floor (walldruff?). We’ve tried putting both cats out in the morning and leaving them out till we get back from work, but whilst one doesn’t mind (Gremlin will happily hunt in the allotments all day), Lump will spend the entire day either sitting trembling on the window sill or trying to claw her way through the back door (thankfully it is uPVC!).  We don’t have a cat flap, firstly because it’s a rented property so we’re not allowed, and secondly because for the love of God neither of them know how to use it – don’t even mention the time we put the flap on their covered litter tray – what a disaster that turned out to be.  Shove them through it, no problem they find their way back out, but leave them to their own devices?  A pile of poo in the kitchen and a pristine, if closed, litter tray.

So I’ve done some googling today.  Apparently it is a sign of stress.  My poor kitty is probably being made worse by my shouting at her and spraying water.  And as for blocking the area or covering it up?  Just sends ‘em somewhere else, where it’ll probably be worse because you’re adding to their stress.

I’ve invested in some “Soft Paws” – little covers that you glue on to their claws which mean they can’t scratch – not cruel like de-clawing, but it means that they can still do the clawing action but not cause any damage.  I’ve ordered them in shocking pink.  What?!  The neighbours already think I’m mad, now they’ll think I’m painting my cats claws!  I won’t be putting them on Gremlin because she is happy to go out and she doesn’t scratch at all, so it will only be Lump that will have manicured paws.

You can also buy a special plug-in device, like an air freshener, that releases cat pheromones into the air to relax the cat.  I’ve tried one of these before when another cat used to force it’s way through our (locked) cat flap and terrify my elderly cat – unfortunately it just relaxed the intruder rather than my poor cat so it didn’t work in that instance.  Also, it’s forty quid.

Anyone else got any ideas?  Also, would you like to be the one who tells my Landlord?  Please?