Scientists are working hard to solve one of life’s greatest problems: a house cat with a bad habit of tearing up the furniture. In a new study Wednesday, researchers have identified several key factors that appear to predict unwanted cat scratching. These include having young kids in the house, the kind of playtime they get, and their overall level of stress.
At least some of these aspects can be tweaked to keep your cat’s clawing in check, the scientists say. The study was conducted by veterinary scientists from Turkey, Portugal, and France; it was also funded by the French animal health company Ceva Santé Animale. The team had over 1,200 cat owners in France fill out an online survey, which included questions about their cat’s home environment, daily routine, and scratching behaviors.
Overall, the team found that some cats were naturally more prone to scratching, such as felines that were described as “aggressive” or “disruptive” by their owners. But there were other outside components linked to unwanted cat scratching, particularly having kids at home, playing with the cat for long periods of time, and generally being more active at night. “It underscores the multifaceted nature of undesirable scratching behavior and emphasizes the importance of comprehensively understanding both the individual characteristics of the cat and its environment to effectively address this behavior,” the researchers wrote about their findings, Wednesday in Frontiers in Veter.