Welcome Rain

It's been a dry year in Wisconsin.  The lack of precipitation was noticeable in the early months of 2012 when we received very little snow.  I only had the blower out about three times during the winter of 2011-12.  Highly unusual. 

We also had an early spring with warm temperatures in April and hot, 90-degree F days in May.  Also, highly unusual.

Now as we approach the end of July, it's been about a month since I mowed the lawn.

The last time we had drought-like conditions similar to this was in 1988.  We were living in a different suburb (Wauwatosa) at the time, and it was so dry the city restricted outdoor flames of any kind, including charcoal grill fires. We lived directly across the street from a golf course and the fairways were straw-yellow.  Only the greens and tees were watered and green.

Over the past two weeks, however, things have begun to improve.  We've had some light showers, and I awoke last night to rumbles in the distance that led to a nice rain.  So far this morning we've gotten about a quarter inch.

Hope we get a lot more.

Natural Scratch Guaranty

Natural Scratch is guaranteed to work or you can ship it back for a refund. Very few are returned, and I believe the reason is Natural Scratch does the job for most people and cats.

It's not an automatic solution but when customers follow the easy-to-read, step-by-step instructions in the training guide, success is all but a certainty. I can say this with confidence for two reasons: 1. Years of experience; and 2. an understanding of animal behavior and, in particular, what attracts and motivates cats.

The white cedar used for the post is a great material for scratching and cats often understand this on their own and need little human involvement to begin clawing it. In addition, Natural Scratch is both rock solid and tall enough to satisfy the desire of many cats to stretch out.

Learn more at www.naturalscratch.com.

Cat Jail

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.