Dolce's Scratching Tree

Sanjee of Hot(M)BC was asking Dolce about her awesome cat tree. The truth of the matter is that the tree has been handed down from Magoo to Smudge to Bella and finally to Dolce.

Magoo was not that crazy about it. He thought the dangling balls were fun, but he tried to sit on the upper ledge once with disasterous results. He was a little too big for this toy, and it dumped him onto the floor quite unceremoniously. Just think of it as a dunk tank for cats.

Smudge scratched on it very briefly. Too many dangling things. I think they spooked him.

Bella used to play on the cat tree like Dolce, but as she grew up she decided that it was too unladylike to cavort around it. She will still scratch on it though and her and Dolce will play a game of paw slaps around it from time to time.

Dolce has offically claimed the tree as her own. She will play and climb on it at least two three times a week.




As a kitten, she used it as her special spot where she could sit and watch the other cats.


This leads me to my two cents of the day. People who complain about cats scratching furniture are blaming the cat for doing what comes naturally to it. We have had four cats from kittenhood, and have had very few problems with our furniture getting scracthed up. When we got Magoo, we took him to the pet store and placed him amongst the collection of small scratching post. He sniffed several of them and finally settled on a green carpettesd teepee. That was the one we bought. He will still use it if he sees it. Of course he is far too big to fit inside anymore. We then bought him a large carpetted cat tree to satisfy his climbing and scratching instincts. As each subsequent cat came into the house, they saw the current members of the household using this cat tree. We had to use a little spray bottle correction to remind the cats what was not acceptable scratching, but our furniture has survived intact for ten years. Sure the leather sofa has a couple of scratch marks, but those are from kittens launching themselves off the couch as they played.




I think letting her use a climbing tree as a kitten gave her far too many skills. It also made her far too bold and daring for mine or my wife's tastes. Here is the little monkey on top of the roof.