No, it is not the sink.
When I first brought Hope home, I bought her a scratching post. You know, one of the kinds that is covered in carpet. Hope couldn’t have been less interested in it. I sprinkled cat nip on it, and that seemed to get her attention … but she was not going to the scratching post to do her business. She ignored it completely, and set about tearing the shit out of my bathmat, my rug, and my sweaters which hung over the back of my desk chair.
I was at my wits’ end.
I wept about it.
I pleaded with Hope.
I cajoled. I would pick her up and go place her right next to the scratching post, and put her paw on it, trying to give her some subliminal hint, like: “You know that scratching thing you do? Do it here!” But she would look up at me with confused and vaguely contemptuous eyes, like: “Lady, why are you manipulating my paw like that? I have no idea what is going on, and please remember: I don’t speak English so you’re just BABBLING as far as I’m concerned.”
A month or so ago, I dropped Hope off at my cousin Kerry’s. I had to go out of town unexpectedly and had no idea when I would return home. Kerry welcomed Hope with open arms (this had been Hope’s second sleepover).
When I finally came back to New York to pick Hope up 7 or 8 days later … I walked into Kerry’s apartment and saw Hope lying on a torn-to-shreds cardboard scratching post. Only it was more like a scratching runway, lying horizontally. Hope was surrounded by carnage. She looked satiated, insane. Her claws gleamed sharp in the sunlight. I was amazed. “I gotta get me one of those!”
So I did.
And yes, my apartment is now a shredded-cardboard wreck that I have to continuously sweep up … but Hope is obsessed – OBSESSED – with her cardboard runway, and actually yowls if I pet her while she is on it, or go to try to pick her up. “Noooooo noooooo please do not separate me from my true love!”
She has no more interest in tearing up my bathmat or my carpet (although she is still VERY interested in swallowing entire Netflix envelopes whole) … and goes to TOWN on her cardboard runway. Tyra Banks would be so proud. Sometimes she just perches on top of it, haunches tucked underneath her, like a watchful Cornish hen.
But yeah. I would say, from the look in her eyes, and her body language, that the new scratching post is a success. I’m almost embarrassed for her. I want to tell her to hide her heart a little bit more, to not show her passion for the cardboard scratching post … at least not so openly … because she might get rejected. Save a LITTLE something for yourself, Hope!
Hope ignores me.
She is happy.
I have one of those flat cardboard things too, and my cat loves it. I just put it on the floor, prepped it with catnip, and he was all over it. He still scratches other things too, but not to a destructive degree. Hooray for cardboard thingies!
This is hilarious. We had a similar experience with our cat. He was tearing up the arms of our couch so we bought him a scratching post. Although.. like Hope… he didn’t care. I too did the whole “put his paw on the post and move it up and down like he’s scratching” thing. Nope. Catnip? Nope. He liked the couch.
Then, one night (this is like a bedtime story…), me and my wife were watching TV, and all of the sudden I saw him reach up for it and scratch. I excitedly whipsered over to my wife to look. We were like proud parents.
BONUS: He uses it so much now that sometimes his nails get stuck. One time he got stuck and it tipped over on him. It was pretty cute and totally funny.
Uhm …. I think Hope needs a cigarette.
Tracey – bwahahahahahahahahaha
It does look like that, doesn’t it??
Fox – hahahahahaha I love that you did the whole “pantomime with the paw” thing – but they just don’t respond to that, do they??
I am proud of Hope for having a breakthrough in her scratching behavior.
Captain shunned both the vertical and horizontal scratching thingys — even when tempted with catnip — preferring ONLY to scratch the feck out of our carpets. We had to. . . well, you know what we did.
What’s hilarious in a totally sad, pathetic way is that he STILL does it. Still tries to destroy our carpet, only now we ignore him (well, when we’re not laughing at him) instead of screaming at him like banshees. I like to think he’s a more contented kitty.
How do those upright carpet posts stay in business? Certainly not by word of mouth. Same with our cat. The post was like an insult to her, a mild offence on our part that we would even think to buy it. And yes, like everyone else, we tried the pantomime. All the while she’s looking at us and you just know she’s thinking, “What a dumbass.”
Love it. Love the cardboard. Love watching her tear it to shreds like a MANIAC, and then passing out in bliss afterwards.
My Rocky and Scully love their little Cardboard Box of Delights. After they’re done scratching, they perch atop it and fold up their paws, looking like self-satisfied banker cats.
I have to get me one of those because the ch{555