hi there and welcome back to kitten school in part one we were on a mission to teach our Siamese cats singsing to scratch his claws on a scratching post and not our sofa after researching what seemed like a gazillion cat scratch posts on the market I ordered one that I thought would be sturdy enough to support a large adult cat most scratching posts are too small and they fall over easily and cats need something solid that they can really dig into when they scratch you can see here the new scratching post on the left next to one of the older ones it's much bigger and singsing took off scratching on it right away the other cats liked the scratching post too and they even really liked the little toy mouse that's attached to it though with this rowdy crew I don't think that Mouse is gonna last very long there's even been a little bit of jealousy over who gets to play on the new post so we'll probably end up buying another one so that there's enough post to go around the foster kittens enjoy playing on the post and the sooner you can train a kitten to use a scratching post the more likely they will opt to use one as adults instead of your furniture singsing is a highly sociable cat and he responds very well to positive reinforcement so I begin by lavishing him with praise whenever he scratches on the post I also give treats to which for most cats is a huge motivator sinking quickly catches on that I want him to use the post and then he starts going to it frequently sometimes he gets a treat sometimes he doesn't but he's clearly learning that this is the place for him to scratch and I'm not surprised that he likes it so much because it's so sturdy singsing can even climb up the side of it and he's a pretty heavy cat a solid structure is very important if you want your cat to use a post they have to be able to dig in and really stretch those leg muscles a cat will not use a post that falls over when it's being scratched on fatty likes to use it as a perch to reach the lamp poles I guess I'll need to move the post a little further away so he doesn't figure out how to turn the lamp on and off he's such a smart cat I have no doubt that he could really learn to do that finally our new sofa arrived but was singsing ready for the no scratch challenge we would soon find out the cats enjoyed playing among all the boxes and packaging as we assembled the sofa while creature and maloo made themselves a nice napping spot in the middle of our workspace after a day spent puzzling over directions sweating swearing and going through periods of not speaking to each other we finally got the sofa put together a few days go by with no sofa scratching incidents so I'm thinking that the sofa just might be safe well almost one night when we were a little late giving the cat's their dinner sing-sing clawed the new sofa to express his displeasure with our slow service we gave him a squirt with the water bottle and put him right on the scratching post and he hasn't done it again since maybe we can fine-tune his training maybe not but until then I think I'll just keep this end of the sofa covered living with cats is a beautiful wondrous thing but there might always have to be some compromises and you know what that's perfectly fine with me thanks so much for watching kittens school is dedicated to the joyfulness of everything cats if you like this video please hit that subscribe button now and join the kitten school family