Two New Ways To Repel Cats From Things They Shouldn't Scratch

Recently, I came upon two new-to-me ways of dissuading cats from clawing things in the home that are off limits. Thought I should pass them on. These were posted by experienced cat people on the Internet

1. To keep dogs and cats from furniture and such, use Vicks Vapor Rub. They hate this smell.

2. Spray the area that your cat is scratching with inexpensive perfume. It will stop immediately as they do not like the taste when licking their paws. I have been using this for 35 years and have not found a cat yet that continued to scratch my furniture. I hope this helps you, too.

Like humans, a cat tends to stay with something that pleases it. This means that if your cat has developed a bad scratching habit--clawing a couch for example--you will have to work with her or him to bread the habit. The above suggestions might help.

New Products On The Way From roygbivdesignsLLC

Raw materials have been stockpiled and new tools purchased to build new products that will be added to my scratching post site, naturalscratch.com.

In the next weeks and months, I hope to introduce a horizontal scratching pad, an A-frame post and perch combination, and perhaps even a custom section, where I will allow people to tell me what type of cat furniture they want. It will then be built custom and shipped.

Goal is to have more products that will help people live with their cats without turning to drastic measures such as declawing.

Naming names.

Scratching post? Cat scratching post? What's in a name? In this modern Internet world, quite a lot.

Names have always been essential and defining. Examples come to mind quickly: Ford Mustang, Prairie Style, Beatles, Stratocaster. 7-Up.

But in the era of "key" words, names are important in ways that didn't matter 20 years ago. Natural Scratch--I think at least--is a good name for the post I designed, have manufactured, and have sold for about the last 15 years.

However, few will go to Google and do a search on it. Some who receive recommendations from their friends do, I know, but most people who need a target for their cat's claws put in the words that they've heard or read most often. Maybe it's scratching post, scratcher, cat-scratching post, cat pole, or another...

There are many possibilities.

What's frustrating is that Natural Scratch offers people extremely high prospects for success in training their cats, but most people have never seen it and never will see it. Mainly this is due to the fact that I have yet to figure out how to get high search engine rankings consistently.

If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Figuring out Twitter and Wikipedia

Saturday was my first time aboard Twitter, the hot, new "social media" capability. People keep telling me it's the place to be in terms of promoting Natural Scratch. I'm skeptical but willing to give it a try.

Same is true of Wikipedia which I am now a registered contributor to. Although it is necessary to be careful about information, wherever it appears, Wikipedia amazes me with its articles about absolutely arcane knowledge. For example, what is the story behind The Beatles wonderfully wacky "I Know Your Name"?

First objective is to discover how to go about mentioning Natural Scratch without appearing to be a shameless self-promoter who is contaminating capabilities made for non-commercial communications.

Squirrels

Last Wednesday while mowing the lawn, I found a dead gray squirrel in the yard. This was a first. I've seen plenty that were killed by automobiles while crossing the street but I've never found one lifeless in the yard before.

Amazingly, two days later I was looking out a bedroom window and saw another dead gray squirrel. I thought it might have been the first dragged to a new position by a scavenger, but I was wrong. The first was where I had left it, I soon discovered, and now there was a second.

Both were in the vicinity of a decaying stump that had a number of mushrooms and other organisms feasting on its weakened wood. I suppose it's possible the squirrels poisoned themselves by sampling something they shouldn't have.

Or, maybe it was some disease. Strange.