Bad Mognusticat! No Rascals Rewards for you! It did not mean you had to
*be* a rascal to get a reward!

Sticky Paws are your friend:
http://www.stickypaws.com

Available online in the UK from www.woofnwhiskers.com,
www.petplanet.co.uk, www.ultimateanimals.co.uk and probably several
others...

Deb.

Unless they learn to use scratching posts it's almost impossible.
Whether you would consider declawing or not, you don't have any choice,
it's rightly illegal in the UK.

The trick is to give them something far more preferrable to claw than your
furniture. This can be a combination of very satisfying scratching poles
(you may have to try a few different types, mine are not fussed by sisal but
love carpet ones), rubbing said poles with catnip, putting the poles near
and/or in front of said inticing furniture, positioning the furniture that
its not particularly enjoyable to scratch, possibly coating said furniture
with either a scent, something they don't like scratching, and/or protective
covers, and of course some behavorial modifications such as encouragement
towards the scratchingposts /discouragement regarding said furniture.

Softpaws and/or trimming will also help.

My two only scratch one particular corner of one particular chair (I never
figured out why). That particular chair is now positioned so that guests
can't see that particularcirner unless they are beign *really* nosy, and the
cats don't seem so interested any more since I got the cheaper carpetted
scratching posts. Shmogg has also taken up scratching more on the posts
since IBKFergus came along, I think its to prove he can scratch "higher" so
he's the bigger cat (which he is!).

And the new couch/sofa/lounge doesn't attract scratching claws at all, for
some reason. It must be the slightly different fabric that is less appealing
or something.

Yowie

Training, training, training. And lots of scratching posts.

I know of only two which have any hope of success.

One, if you *have* no furniture, it is unlikely that the cat
will be able to destroy furniture.  (Caveat: Since the cat must
destroy *something*, having no furniture is not always a good
solution.  Apartments with sniffy landlords are particularly
vulnerable.)

Two, I have found that if a piece of furniture is sufficiently
ugly and uncomfortable for humans, it's fairly safe.  Having
only furniture which you wish the cats *would* destroy should
work.  (But see the caveat above; finding a solution to the
problem of a cat destroying the furniture is possibly unwise.)

[a] stainless-steel furniture (NOTE: Do NOT have nylon carpeting with this!)
[b] heavy-cloth (canvas? tweed?) covers for everything - then replace the
covers as needed.

Good! Since I found out that declawing is ekshully dismembering, I won't
ever let it be done to any of mine.