Cats of many colors

Selling Natural Scratch over the years has put me in touch with an amazing number of cat people and an even more amazing variety of cats. The stories I've heard or read are pretty amazing. Cat's that will eat just about anything to those that hardly eat anything.

Extremely fussy and solitary cats to those that are nearly as happy-go-lucky as a typical dog.

Just as cats come in many colors so do their personalities. Some run terrified from running water, others enjoy lapping it directly from a lavatory faucet. Humans have told me about cats that *guard* Natural Scratch so their companions can't get at it. But then there are those with multiple cats who enjoy clawing the post at the same time.

The takeaway from this is as someone who is trying to live with a cat, it's important to realize that you have to learn the cat's personality and what motivates it in order to understand how to train it.

Natural Scratch Testimonials

I always encourage people who are contemplating purchasing or have purchased a Natural Scratch scratching post or two to read the Testimonials page at http://www.naturalscratch.com/nstestimonials.html.

This helps them understand the range of reactions cats have to Natural Scratch. Some take to it immediately, others require considerable owner involvement and training. All eventually come to realize that it is something in the home or apartment that they can lay their claws into, with full human approval, for all their scratching needs

Never but never do I sell or promote Natural Scratch as a set-and-forget solution. It isn’t and there is no such thing as far as I know. BUT, it does work without exception if customers follow the method presented in the training guide, consistently and with love and patience. This came to mind because I was happy to add two more nice comments from customers yesterday afternoon to naturalscratch.com. 

Bell Curve and Natural Scratch

Some customers call or send an e-mail wondering whether their cat or cats will use Natural Scratch.  I immediately say yes, but quickly add that in some cases it will take more human involvement and commitment.

More often than not, I then mention the Bell Curve and how it relates to feline behavior involving Natural Scratch.

Some cats on the *most cooperative* side of the curve claw Natural Scratch with little or no training.  We have two like that.

Then there's the other side of the curve--the "least cooperative."  These cats ignore the post completely.  Not good.

Most cats are in the middle and tend toward one end of the curve of the other.

Even completely uninterested cats, however, are turned into reliable and happy Natural Scratch clawers when people follow the instructions in the training booklet. 

It presents an easy-to-understand behavior modification method that works like a champ.

Read more about it at http://www.naturalscratch.com/nstraining.html.

Cat Scratching Success

Training a cat to claw where you want her or him to and nowhere else is quite a satisfying accomplishment. With many cats, it happens very quickly because, for whatever reason, they are able to understand that Natural Scratch is just for them and is the one place they can scratch with abandon and with the hearty approval of their human companions.

I don't think coming to this realization is a matter of intelligence. Two of our three current cats--Twinkles and Gemini--were immediate Natural Scratch clawers and haven't scratched anything else in years. The third, Leo, is probably smarter than the other two but he was harder to train.

It wasn't because he didn't understand what Natural Scratch was for or that he didn't like clawing it. What bugged him was being restricted to just one approved target. Leo wanted to scratch anywhere, anytime. To him, Natural Scratch was fine but so was the corner of the futon.

Nevertheless, through a combination of rewards for clawing Natural Scratch and negative conditioning--cat jail--for targeting anything else, we were able to train his bad scratching habits out of him. If you have a cat like Leo, Natural Scratch and its easy-to-use training method is just what the doctor ordered.

Wasps With Nothing Left To Do

It's early October in Wisconsin and the cold weather is coming on.  Under the eaves and in a few other places, paper wasps have reached the end of another season. 

The queens have already flown away to hibernate for the winter, leaving the workers with nothing to do.  No eggs or larvae to tend and no need to expand the hive.  

They appear to seek food because I see them on the few flowers that are still out but when at the nest, they tend to sit on top where gravity is friendlier.

Their lives are over but they don't know it.  Soon the last will perish in the below freezing temperatures that are just around the corner.