Hi everyone. We have two cats who love to sharpen their nails. We usually buy velvet or suede furniture and our cats weren’t able to damage it. However, recently we found a nice sofa bed online. It says it’s made out of suede, but when it arrived it looks more like leather! Please check the photos. I’m afraid our cats will be able to easily damage it. Has anyone had experience with this material before? Or can you please advise how to keep our cats off the sofa bed? They do love to scratch. We tried to trim their claws, we also tried claw covers but they took them off easily. What should we do? We have this expensive beautiful sofa bed and we are not even sure if we should unwrap it. Please help!
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Help! Is this material scratch proof and if not, what should I do?
- Thread starter Natuska
- Start Date
Hi. Is this a sofa bed that will be used regularly? If not, since you let them scratch other surfaces, the best thing you can do is buy a heavy duty plastic tarp to place over the sofa bed when not in use. If you are going to use it daily, then you will need to 'train' them to stay off of it, which may prove to be difficult because they are so accustomed to being able to do it with other items. See if using some of these techniques in these TCS articles (see links below) might work.
I had a leather couch and one of my cats used the seat/cushions to lounge on and because she wasn't deliberately using it for scratching, she really did not do any damage to it. However, another one did use the side of it for a scratching post, it tore holes in the leather.
How To Stop Your Cat From Scratching The Furniture - TheCatSite
23 Proven Ways To Stop A Cat From Scratching Furniture - TheCatSite
I had a leather couch and one of my cats used the seat/cushions to lounge on and because she wasn't deliberately using it for scratching, she really did not do any damage to it. However, another one did use the side of it for a scratching post, it tore holes in the leather.
How To Stop Your Cat From Scratching The Furniture - TheCatSite
23 Proven Ways To Stop A Cat From Scratching Furniture - TheCatSite
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Some could depend on how sharp your cat's claws tend to get. Untrimmed claws, could probably do some damage. Always-clipped ones, probably minimal. Do you have a cat who likes to sharpen on your couches?
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #4
Thanks for your reply. I don’t know what to do, I was going to use it regularly. Is there a safer solution than to train them stay off it?
We can trim their claws but it doesn’t prevent them from scratching the furniture. Our cats like to sharpen on our couches but our previous couches were made out of material they couldn’t damage. This one said “suede” online but it looks like leather! We want to keep it but I’m not sure because of the material. No idea how to keep the cats away from it. Cover it? Buy some protection strips? We will trim their nails but it doesn’t fully resolve it.
Did you look at those articles to see if there are any ideas in them that you can try?
you need to give them somthing more appealing to scratch on is all cat trees those cardboard blocks etc. its a normal instinct for cats to scratch/ sharpen claws on stuff its also how they scent mark and claim territory i have 2 cat trees next to my couch short stumpy one is the alternative we gave graycie to scratch(you can see the damage to couch already) instead of our couch she uses it the one to the right is a really tall 6 foot plus one we got her to give her a better place than our wall ac to be ontop of. also your couch picture is not scratch proof
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- #7
The only thing I’m thinking is this double sided sticky tape: Amazon.com
Can it help to deter cats from the couch completely?
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #8
My cats have cat trees and cat scratches but they still want to scratch the furniture. As you said they want to mark it with their scent.
it could but its also going to freak your cat out the first time it gets the tape stuck on it and it will probably run all crazy possibly hurt itself
That will totally depend on the cat, tbh.
we used a short stumpy one placed right next to it i then gave graycie treats anytime i caught her using it
