This is probably one of the single greatest pet accessories I've ever purchased, and I've been a cat owner for 30 years now. One of the really nice advantages to this thing is that it is very tall for a scratching post -- my cat's pretty large compared to other cats, and a lot of other scratching posts don't let him stretch like this one does. He loves the sisal, too; letting him know that this kind of material is fine to scratch early in his life saved me a lot of headaches with my other furniture. The base is soft, plush carpet, like a fleece blanket (another thing he enjoys sleeping on) but not as dry-feeling. I highly recommend it for anyone with cats that like to stretch and scratch (so, all of them), though if your cat is particularly small they probably won't get much use out of the top half of the post.