If you have indoor cats you most likely have damage somewhere in your home. Even some outdoor cats, like my mother’s cat, Smokey, had favorite places where he clawed. Just look at this box he claimed as his own and decorated to suit him. Mama just let him have at it since it was in the garage and it wasn’t a chair or a sofa.
Cats scratch and they claw. That’s what they 
do. Once they move in with you they find something that suits their fancy and they make it theirs. In our house with Olivia it is the sweet small recliner chair we bought at a yard sale some years ago. I’ve used tin foil on it, sticky plastic, commands (No, Olivia! No! No!). But as you can see 
she has managed to leave her mark. Does she consider this her art form?
Do we have something for them to claw on? Yes. We have three cat trees. I allow her to claw the small swatch of carpet in my office. It seems to hold up well through it all. I tell Olivia what a good girl she is when I see her use the cat trees and the little rug she can scratch next to it and the cardboard scratchers we bring in, but she still prefers clawing on the sweet recliner chair. Why, Olivia? Why?
