This is about cat scratching.
Valley Girl (VG), in America, took a very nice picture of her super, rescued, polydactyl, smokey, female Maine Coon, Tootsie, with a ruff to match anything from 16th century Europe. She has the best ruff you’ll see on a cat but this post is not about Tootsie’s ruff, it’s about her claws. The picture VG took shows Tootsie using them against a scratching post and it gave me the idea for this picture post.
PoCers like to see claws particularly when they are used on a scratching post. If you have a nice picture of a scratching post or other scratching device being scratched please upload it in a comment. The instructions for uploading are below the comment box. If you have have the facilities to do it, please scale your picture to about a max of 640 pixels along the shorter length. If not don’t worry, just upload and I’ll do the rest.
The purpose behind this page is to promote the idea that there is a nice alternative to declawing your cat: buy a heavy, large, solid scratching post or scratching device – it can be horizontal. The larger the better because it won’t move when scratched and cats like a solid surface to scratch. A tree outside is what a cat would normally scratch.
Encourage your cat to use it. Place it at a strategic position. What is the best place for a scratching post? Please tell me, what you think. Somewhere prominent at a junction would be suitable, in my opinion. By “junction” I mean a place where different areas come together such as near the cat flap if you have a cat flap.
I say this because scratching is also marking territory for a cat (both visual and olfactory) and for wild cats a crossroads on trails within their territory or along borders of their territory are places where they can mark and get the message across most effectively to other cats.
Great photos all around, wonderful catnasium! I had to buy Marvin the giant amazon scratcher, it took some training. He prefers the couch, but it was a fun process. He is such a clown. He loved testing the waters, just making sure the rules are for always. The taller the better for these guys. Bigfoot prefers corrugated cardboard on an incline. I put weights in the bottom so it doesn’t move. He wouldn’t use it if it scooted along the floor.
Several of my cats like the cardboard. But, oh my goodness, they just shred it!
I’ve improvised replacements that are more cost effective:
I cut cardboard boxes to the size of the inclining “thingy” (I don’t know what to call it), then glue the same size piece of fine sandpaper to the cardboard.
Instant manicures, and they love it.
Oh my goodness! Thanks for that little suggestion Dee. Bigfoot just might like it.
Bryan and Ebony just after it was built
The picture of cat Jozef outdoors in the thick winter snow and ice of England is excellent.
Thank you Rudolph, here he is up on the roof
Classic photo.
We have a few pics of Jozef scratching but Walter scratches too fast to get a decent photo of him lol the claw shards just fly
It can be difficult to get good pictures of these things because it doesn’t happen to a set time scale. You have to have your camera ready all the time.
These are lovely pictures. I love it when the find stuff to scratch on outside. It is a the wildcat coming out.
It’s a multi purpose catnasium, they like to sit on the different layers, use it to go up on their sun roof, exercise on the posts by scratching them, we’ve had to renew parts since John (Babz late husband) built it as that was over ten years ago but all the cats love it.
Where did you get the idea of a catnasium from? I love the name.
John thought it up and christened it the Catnasium, he was a great cat lover and even though disabled he was very good with making things for them with Barbara’s help and so she learned a lot from him and that’s how we had the knowledge how to build the cat run next door.
We also had the ‘Watchtower’ in the corner of our garden too, John built that out of wood. I must see if I can find a pic of that. Bryan loved it.
That is an amazing outdoor shot. Reminds me of Fluffy running around in the snow in Winslow, the few years we had it. She would always get all frisky. I wonder if snow does that to all cats. Anyway, she scratched on one of our apricot trees. They both had low crotches and so they were just the right height for a medium kitty to scratch on. I was very young and afraid she was going to hurt the tree, but she never did (of course).
Here is a nice picture (camera trap) of a Florida panther. This is what domestic cats do too. The picture is US Fish and Wildlife Service on Flickr:
What a great photo of Tootsie by VG. I love it!