{"id":7608,"date":"2012-10-13T06:50:13","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T10:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/?p=7608"},"modified":"2016-01-26T18:06:16","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T23:06:16","slug":"the-cat-owners-survival-guide-chapter-12-wicker-furniture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/the-cat-owners-survival-guide-chapter-12-wicker-furniture\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cat Owner\u2019s Survival Guide \u2013 Wicker Furniture Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Wheee!!! Cats will be cats!! (Image from Cats Fine Arts)<\/p><\/div>\n

If you are a cat guardian, you have certain issues you have to face, such as irreplaceable family heirlooms and collectibles. Basically, what you have to ask yourself, is do you want to keep them safe within your possession to pass on to future generations, or do you want them to be knocked off wherever you have them on display to be smashed into a kaleidoscope horror of a million pieces of whatever fragile material they are made of onto the floor the split second your cat becomes distracted by a flying moth?<\/p>\n

When you are a cat parent, the choices are pretty basic and all of them require one key ingredient \u2013 common sense. Either you put items that you don\u2019t want broken in a cabinet that a cat can\u2019t get to; you don\u2019t put them out at all and keep them in storage; you don\u2019t put them on a shelf or mantle that your cat can, and will, access; you buy inexpensive decorations that can be held in place with museum putty so that you don\u2019t fret if they get broken; or you save your money and don’t buy the item in the first place.\u00a0 Cats will be cats and you may as well get used to that fact if you want to share your home with them. This avoids a lot of anguish in the long run and allows you\u00a0and kitty to\u00a0enjoy a long and stress-free relationship.<\/p>\n

That being said, let’s apply that logic to wicker furniture. You are\u00a0a cat parent\u00a0and you see a\u00a0beautiful wicker chair you think would be just perfect for your living room. Keeping the common sense rule I shared just moments ago, along with\u00a0a handy visual aid to follow, I will just add this one simple fact: Cats like to scratch. Need I say more?<\/p>\n

So never mind that chair. I think the real issue at hand is writing my follow-up post entitled “Cat Parent Goes Shopping to Buy Fabric to Recover a Wicker Chair.”<\/p>\n

\"Peanut<\/a>

Yes… Great job Peanut… Thanks a whole heck of a lot!<\/p><\/div>\n

All kidding aside, this actually brings up an important point – it is normal for cats to scratch.<\/strong> It keeps them happy and healthy and should be encouraged.<\/strong> Make sure you have plenty of cat scratching posts and scratching options available for your feline friend and with a quick bit of positive reinforcement you should have no problems with your furniture! And to be fair to Peanut, she was just an innocent bystander – this chair is old and was scratched up long before Peanut was even born – back in the days when I did not have common sense and did not provide my cats with proper cat scratching products.<\/p>\n

If you would like more information on why scratching is important for your cat or recommended cat scratching products, please read these informative posts:<\/p>\n

Scratching the Surface on Declawing Cats and Trying to Uncover the Reality of Martha Stewart\u2019s Opinion on the Controversial Subject<\/a><\/p>\n

Workout Your Cat in Style with the Kitty Treadmill Scratcher from Royal Cat Boutique<\/a><\/p>\n

A Game of Katris and Mouse \u2013 Cat Scratching Furniture that is Fun and Practical<\/a><\/p>\n

\"hearts\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On another note – we are so thrilled to announce we have won a Pettie Award for “Best Designed Blog” <\/a>and will be honoring Abandoned Pet Rescue<\/a> with a $1000.00 donation!! We thank all of you for your votes and support and will be sure to do a much more detailed post in the days to come!! Congratulations to all the nominees and winners in the other categories as well – everyone deserves a big round of applause!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are a cat guardian, you have certain issues you have to face, such as irreplaceable family heirlooms and collectibles. Basically, what you have to ask yourself, is do you want to keep them safe within your possession to pass on to future generations, or do you want them to be knocked off wherever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1098,365,1096],"tags":[175,1019,339,817,1114,343,464],"class_list":["post-7608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cat-behavior","category-cat-humor","category-general-cat-care-and-health","tag-cat-behavior","tag-cat-furniture","tag-cat-humor","tag-cat-scratching","tag-cat-survival","tag-cat-tips","tag-scratching"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Peanut-and-wicker.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7608"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16321,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7608\/revisions\/16321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}