By: Joanna G

Cats are loved and adored around the world. Even though they are ideal pets, there is still one problem that many cat owners encounter repeatedly: scratched furniture!

Cats are known for using their sharp claws everywhere. Despite this being part of a cat’s behavior, it can also lead to many unwanted damages in people’s houses. But there has been a new study to solve the situation.

An international team of researchers has investigated the scratching behavior in domestic cats. For the investigation, the researchers asked more than 1,200 cat owners in France about their cat’s behavior about scratching. Then the researchers then used the data to look at several different factors that may have led to unwanted scratching from cats.

They found that the presence of children at home makes the personality of certain cats aggressive, and can increase how much scratching they do.

The researchers said that stress is another reason for unwanted scratching. The presence of children can create stress and cause the animal’s stress-scratch. The researchers still can’t figure out why there is a link between scratching and children in the house, so they need to do more research.

Another thing that causes stress and unwanted scratching is playfulness. When cats play for too long, their stress level goes up because of the constant stimulation. The author of the new study suggests owners to play with cats for a shorter amount of time, so the stress level decreases.

Image Credit by cottonbro studio