Oh, I forgot about Figaro from Pinnochio, he's a cute one too!
Incidentally, does anybody have any tips to keep cats from scratching on furniture? I try to keep scratching posts in different rooms of the house so that there's always a nearby place that my Ward cat can use to sharpen his claws, reducing any temptation to go put mark the furniture. He even has a whole indoor cat tree house with multiple scratching mats and posts to sink his claws into. Usually he does use these outlets, but from time to time his eye does wander towards the household furniture and he will give it a scratch.
When I catch him putting his claws in some fabric, I tell him no, gently remove his paw, and usually he gets down, and he hasn't done significant damage so far. My mom has some remarkably sturdy woolen carpets all over the house, and his claws cannot undo their weave. We have some chairs and couches though that are more vulnerable. I recently bought some nice cherry wood chairs for dining room, and they have a gold and earth tone brocade fabric on the chair backs that might cat has gone crazy over. I just installed them Friday and found him scratching one of them three different times. I got him off it each time, but the back is already got pucker marks on it. A few more scratches and the stuffing will probably going to be coming out. So I need a quick solution or my furniture will perish.
I have heard that there are certain scents you can use in like orange peel or rosemary, lavender that you can spray on things that you want to stay off-limits to cats, and they won't want to interact with the item, but my cat is the odd one out. He loves scents as much as people do, or more, and has turned over vases of flowers and bowls of fresh picked herbs trying to rub his face against the foliage and inhale. So I am wary that thid might worsen the problem.
I read about cat mittens, booties and socks that some people put on their pets to keep them from scratching things, but I like this idea even less, that sounds uncomfortable and too restrictive because scratching is still natural behavior for cats, and I don't want mine to never be able to be a cat, I just want to have designate safe zones for him to scratch. So not this option for our home definitely.
I thought of covering the furniture with plastic so he can't hurt it, and I think this might be the best way to go, but my mom is complaining that it makes "everything look bad" and that then that it's not comfortable. I think it will be more uncomfortable and look far worse however to have furniture ripped to shreds.
Before coating everything that's delicate in plastic I have ordered some new scratching posts to try again with, hoping that maybe that the novelty of the new chairs is part of what has stimulated his interest, and if something different and more kitty-friendly comes along then he will move onto that next thing, and forget about my stuff This one is part scratch mat, and part toy, where it's got a box compartment with balls inside that he can reach in and try to get. It's also supposed to have catnip in it. So I hope he will like it. I'm going to try putting it directly in front of the chairs, so that maybe he'll be more interested in this than my furniture going forward.
This is a Hail Mary play though, so if anyone has other ideas I would be glad to hear some more suggestions, or stories about your personal experiences.
