How to Spray to Prevent Cats From Scratching

Video Transcript

"Let's talk about how to stop your cat from scratching. Kittens especially very commonly use their mouth and their hands to play with everything. They're a predator type of species, and so by nature they are hunters. And so that does come around to scratching for offense or defense, depending on how you look at it. As kittens, you want to deter that, because as they get older an adult cat may use a swipe of the hand, or the paw, you know, to get you to stop touching them, or whatever, but it still can be an aggressive behavior which you don't want. So the first thing you want to do is basically teach them that that's a negative thing. You always want to, you know, produce scratching posts, and have natural things for them to scratch on, because that is a normal behavior for them. Also, having toys, anything that they can play with, that's positive, is always a good thing top keep and hand to keep them away from scratching things that they're not supposed to. Trimming their nails, have your veterinary clinic help you through that, is also something that is very helpful as far as at least, you know, they're not causing any kind of damage. The other thing too, which works very well for kittens, is if they are scratching, if they're becoming aggressive, is actually grabbing them gently behind the head, or the nape of the neck, and that's called scruffing them. And what that does is that's a natural thing that the mother would do and you can also scruff them and hiss at them when they're little kittens and that will tell them that whatever they did was not appropriate. So talk to your veterinary clinic, they can also guide you through this. Using a spray bottle with water in it, also helps if they're really scratching at you, on furniture, but the bottom line is it can be a natural thing and use lots of scratching posts so they will use their natural abilities on normal things."