Many kittens and cats lose their homes or even their lives in shelters when relinquished as a result of destructive clawing. That s why it s so important to first understand why your pet behaves the way he does, and then plan to solve the problem. Why Cats Claw Clawing is hard-wired into the feline brain, and is a natural instinctive behavior as natural as a human baby reaching out with its hands. Cats do not claw your furniture to be vindictive or bad, but to mark territory as owned. I suppose you could call it a backhanded compliment that the cat thinks so highly of your furniture that he wants to claim it as his own.
Cats tend to claw to comfort themselves during times of stress.
Clawing just feels good to the cat. It provides great aerobic exercise to stretch the shoulder and foreleg muscles, and keeps nails healthy and clean. Cats have both a physical and psychological need to scratch and claw. You can t fight nature and win so instead, use consistent rewards and the cat s own natural behavior and biology to train the cat to do the right thing. The key to retraining scratch behavior is giving the cat something irresistible to use, while at the same time making the forbidden object undesirable.