It’s simple: You pick the objects that you want your cat to scratch. Here’s how.

By Karen Commings

Does your furniture have little shreds of fabric hanging from the corners? Does your relatively new area rug look more than a little disheveled? Do your cupboards suffer from telltale claw marks? If so, you need to understand that your cat isn’t out to destroy your property — she is merely satisfying her natural urges in the best way she knows how.

The unbridled glee with which a cat scratches an object is something you can redirect to a human-friendly location and texture. Be prepared to experiment, though.

Cats scratch objects to remove the sheaths of their nails and to mark their territories. And the stretching or climbing involved in the process is a way to exercise and flex their muscles. “It’s important to recognize that scratching is normal behavior,” says Ilona Rodan, DVM, of the…

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