Okay so I got a bunch of horizontal and vertical scratchers that my cats use which I think for the most part satisfy their urge to scratch.
However one of my cats scratches when she’s trying to look for something or get an object she can’t reach. For example if I put a clear container on the carpet with a toy inside it doesn’t really occur to her to just jump into the container to get the toy. Instead she tries to scratch the carpet surrounding the tub to I guess, “dig” the toy out of the container.
I’ve also got a rug/chair mat on my carpet and sometimes she scratches under it to I guess look for something under there. She also sometimes scratches underneath the horizontal scratching mat instead of on top of it which is what it was made for.
All of our cats have always been declawed in the front so no advice from me. My cousin recommends something called caps for the claws. She tells me they work well but fall off after some amount of time.
Caps are part of the reason we ended up getting our cat declawed. We tried caps and she managed to hook her claw into the carpet loops and couldn’t get free. So she was freaking out, our kids were freaking out, and it was bad all around.
Maybe your cat is trying to get to the evil spirits emenating from the ancient Viking burial ground under your house. Animals are more attuned to this kind of thing.
We should go for some spicy food the next time I’m in town!
Scratching isn’t much of a problem elsewhere in the house. She just seems to be looking for something under the rug but I’m not really sure what because there’s nothing there. I solved the container thing by simply not putting out clear containers on the carpet, but the rug thing has me confused. But unfortunately I need the rug because I wheel my chair around it.
I’m thinking about getting transition strips…but for rugs? Do they exist?
We are terrible cat parents, we just use large toenail clippers turned sideways so they’re going the same direction as the skinny part of the claw. We only have one cat that needs a second person for clipping nails, the rest of them are fully used to it and ready for the treat that comes after each paw is finished.
if you only have “one cat” that needs a second person, you have too many cats. 2) since you have too many cats, you should do yourself a favor and get the clippers because they make it really easy.
My cats resist when I try and make them sit in the nail clipping position, but once there it is a breeze. You can’t accidentally cut them down too far. I probably cut off less than could be done with clippers, but its a non-event to do it weekly.
I have been using size xs fwiw. Could maybe go to a size s but I am not sure if that would hit the quick on the smaller ones.
I assume we arrived at the same position (as this isn’t something I Googled) but offering advice in case not. Sitting on floor, cat between legs with butt toward you, hold from the front and clip. Cats naturally back up when feeling danger so they just back up into you.
We definitely have too many cats, but the ones we brought in and raised from a bottle last year hang out, play, and cuddle with the dog, so they belong to him, and he wouldn’t understand if they disappeared to someone else’s home.