Chewing on Leather

Reply to julieandlew

Hi there,

I can think of two things that might help.  The first is to find a chew toy that your cat likes and always give it to her whenever you catch her chewing on the couch.  This way she'll (hopefully) start to think of the toy when she has the urge to start chewing.  The second is to invest in an anti chewing spray.  You can buy this at the pet store and it's basically a spray  that tastes bad for the pet.  They aren't dangerous or anything, they are just unpleasant.  Another alternative is to put hot sauce on the area where she chews.  This may not look that great on your furniture though.

Hope this helps!

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Reply to julieandlew

Sorry to hi-jack your thread here, I'm new and joined to see if anyone else was having this issue ... and it seems you are!!

My 17 week old Bengal is currently in a local vet hospital after having a large amount of chewed up/eaten pieces of foam floor matting removed from his small intestine.  We hope this is something he will grow out of but our vet is concerned about his chewing as he was still chewing things when he was in their ICU on Saturday and she had never seen a kitten so voracious with chewing as Rigsby is.  We have chew-proofed the house in readiness for him coming home but my question is regarding chew toys - is there anything on the market like a dog bone for cats?  Something like jerky treats or a bone that doesn't splinter for cats?

We also have leather furniture and whilst he isn't chewing it (yet) we will be watching him closely to see if he starts.

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Reply to midge

My 5 yr. old Maine Coon Willow is also very destructive,  he has unintentionally ruined ALOT of our things/furniture.  The one thing that worked for me was to let him have things of mine that I no longer wanted, like an old belt, so that it had my scent on it and he could play without getting yelled at, he seemed to be satisfied if he had something of his own.  For cats who are actually ingesting materials like leather, might I suggest something else I have succeeded with-I apologize for not remembering the name but most pet stores carry them-they are dog toys made from unbreakable plastic and are mint scented, cats are naturally attracted to mint, and come in tiny sizes for small dogs-perfect for cats.  Willow actually chews on the ball.  If you just want the cat to stay off stuff, theres a spray called Bitter Apple, and they do not like the scent, also anything citrus scented.  Hope this helps someone a little bit!  Good luck, sometimes I feel like I have a 2 yr old that will never grow up!

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