> I think the point has gotten across and the people who are reading > this and care enough will at least take the time to research it a bit > before doing it or talk to their vet about it a bit more or be more > selective in choosing their vet.
Amen, we can certainly agree on that. And for the original poster, I'd just point out that those first few months are the most crucial for training good scratching habits...it's not that different than teaching housebreaking to a dog. You don't want to even give them a chance to develop bad habits...the idea is to nab them right away with nothing but the opportunity to do what you want. Give a kitten tons of good places to scratch, don't use posts that have carpet and/or fabric which resemble things you *don't* want them to scratch, don't try and manually make the cat scratch on the post (most cats don't like their feet being messed with and this can make them have negative associations with the post) and do your best to restrict them from the places with your good furniture (or use deterrents) when you are not there to supervise until they are older and more reliable, and you'll have a very good chance to have a wonderful, well-behaved cat. If you are considering declawing, you'll at least have a good idea if the training is being successful or not while the cat is still young enough to have the surgery done at an age that is considered relatively safe (all ethical issues about it aside). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:249191 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
