kitties ripping up new rug

[CJinCA]

We got a new area rug for the living room. Now the kitties go down there when they used to avoid it like the plague was down there. They like laying on the rug. Problem is, when I go down in the morning, I can tell someone's been scratching it up. There are tufts and even entire yarns pulled out. Kitties don't scratch up the other carpets, so why this one? How do I get them to stop? We have 2 scratching posts in this house for them.

[Susan]

I had the same problem. I renovated last summer and bought a new area rug for the family room. Muffs started using it as a scratching mat, even though she's never bothered with my other rugs. Darned if I know what she liked so much about this new rug. Perhaps there's something about the smell of new rugs.

In any event, a little later, I bought the Ultimate Scratcher (a very tall scratching post), and I decided to put it on the rug right when one first walks into the room (obviously not in a place where I would trip over it!). Since doing so, Muffs now uses the Ultimate Scratcher and rarely scratches the rug anymore (she still does now and then, but maybe once a week, so I can live with that).

I can't say whether this approach will work as well for you as it did for me, but you might try re-locating one of their scratching posts to the living room, or getting another one for the living room (doesn't necessarily need to be the Ultimate Scratcher). Alternatively, if there's one particular spot on the rug where they scratch a lot, try putting a scratching mat there.

[MowMow]

I always had problems with Book scratching carpet until I left my welcome mat just inside my door... he fell in LOVE with sharpening his claws on that (he still use the sisal posts) so I left him have it.

I'm willing to sacrifice the smaller cheaper rug for the carpeting. Perhaps if you get kitty a smaller piece of the same kind of rug?

[CJinCA]

I'll try putting a mat from the kitchen on the spot they scratch until I can get a proper scratching mat. Unfortunately, they scratch the spot right where you enter the room and I can't put anything there that someone could trip on. Its a wool hand-tufted rug, so I don't have anything else like it unless I get to a carpet shop and find a sample I can take home.

[catinthemirror]

They might also like it because it's flat on the ground. Some cats like to stretch out against a tall scratching post, some like ones that lean, some like ones that lie flat. Your other scratching posts - are they regular, straght up and down posts? I recently bought one of those scratchers that lay flat on the ground, and BOTH my cats go crazy for that thing. I guess it satisfies their need to scratch something that lays flat, so they've completely left our carpeted stairs alone since I bought it.

[CJinCA]

Both the posts are flat. I had one that was vertical, but they ignored it so I got rid of it.