SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
What you're about to hear is in no way a ding on cats.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
No, of course, most people love cats. We just don't love it when they scratch the furniture.
PFEIFFER: Fortunately, there may be a way to stop our feline friends from shredding our love seats. It involves science.
MARTÍNEZ: Yasemin Salgirli Demirbas is a professor of veterinary physiology at the University of Prince Edward Island, and she says, they're really not out to get you.
YASEMIN SALGIRLI DEMIRBAS: This is not a behavior which is displayed to punish the owners.
PFEIFFER: Demirbas co-wrote a research paper on why cats scratch, and she and her team found a relationship between scratching and environmental factors like loud noises or kids. So shield the kitty, spare the sofa.
SALGIRLI DEMIRBAS: We designed an environment for our cats, and we see that there's a decrease in the level of scratching.
MARTÍNEZ: Demirbas says something as simple as creating a hiding place for a cat can calm them down and reduce their desire to scratch. And scratching posts actually do help.
MIKEL DELGADO: A nice, tall, sturdy scratching post or a multilevel cat tree - these are pieces of furniture that are made for cats that give them an outlet for scratching. Many cats are attracted to them.
PFEIFFER: Mikel Delgado is a cat behavior consultant in Sacramento, Calif. She also suggests getting your cat lots of its own stuff because, yes, cats are divas.
DELGADO: You need to have more than one scratching post, and you want to put them in locations that your cat is likely to use them. That might mean right next to your couch if the couch is a place that your cat really enjoys scratching.
MARTÍNEZ: Demanding divas. Delgado also thinks that that can encourage cats to scratch the post and not the couch.
DELGADO: That type of training is much more effective than yelling at your cat or trying to chase them away from the couch or squirting them with water - all methods I do not recommend.
PFEIFFER: But one of the biggest drivers of cat scratches could be you. Professor Demirbas says the way owners play with their cats can be counterproductive.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, if they don't get to catch their prey, all that pent-up energy can turn into claw marks on your sofa.
SALGIRLI DEMIRBAS: For example, if we let them play with the laser toys, we will see that they keep chasing this dot. But at the end, they get nothing. We get an aroused cat. He's an unsuccessful hunter now. He will be frustrated.
PFEIFFER: And nobody wants a frustrated cat who is still out for prey.
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