Why Do My Cats Chew/Scratch the Wall?

[murielle]

Hello all.

   So this is something my fiancee and I have noticed for some time, but for some reason never got around to asking if anyone else ever had this problem.

We have two cats and their both pretty well behaved for the most part.  However, each of them have so weird behaviours we're not sure how to deal with.  

The first has to do with chewing.  Our boy has a thing for iPhone cords and chewing in general.  The iPhone one is really weird since he doesn't chew any other kind of charger wire or the tv wires or anything.  He also likes to chew on high quality plastic bags that you get when you go to a bookshop.  He got into chewing one bag so much he damaged one of the books I bought!  Again, it's only those bags.  He doesn't go near grocery bags or trash bags but it's just confusing.  I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem and if so what did you do about it?  I've considered getting him some sort of chew toy but I've never seen a chew toy for cats.

The second one has to do with out girl.  She likes to scratch the wall.  This one is slightly more worrying because we rent an apartment and I don't want her to damage the wall, not to mention the sound it makes is akin to nails on a chalkboard.  Ugh.  

She has access to several scratching posts and uses them regularly.  So like her brother, outside of these problems, she's well behaved.  We're just wondering what we should do?

Thanks for your time

Murielle

 

[hbunny]

Not sure about the scratching issue, hopefully someone can suggest something, but one of my boys is a chewer and I bought him a dog toy, not like rawhide or anything, just a kong chew toy.  He loves it.  I bought the size for a small/toy breed of dog.  It's small enough he can bite but big enough he can kick too if he wants.

 

[yayi]

I think it has to do with the way a particular item feels to the cat. Your chewer maybe enjoys the type of plastic in the bag and the wire. The same thing goes with the scratcher. I had two kittens that liked to peel the paint of the bottom of the walls (I think the term is "runner"?) first by scratching and then used their teeth. However, the kittens were not healthy so their behavior was likely a way to ease the discomfort of their illness. 

I agree with hbunny regarding the chew toy. As for the scratcher, look for safe, natural cat repellants. If this behavior is a recent one, perhaps it's also a good idea to make sure she is not ill.