Life comes at you fast: one moment you’re thinking about adopting a cat, the next you’re adopting a cat, redecorating your apartment around it, and Googling how to get cats off kitchen counters. Obviously, I’m talking about myself here. In the weeks since I’ve been a full-time cat mom, I’ve bought a cat fountain, a food bowl that looks like a strawberry (ergonomically designed to prevent whisker fatigue), neon rattling toys, and disgusting (to me) packets of Go-like cat food. Gurt, and I have also been in the business of buying bedding which is said to be nice. My cat is an angel, so I felt a little smug about checking everything off my list of pet essentials. And then I heard a scratching sound from the other room.
I went into the living room to find that she had dug her claws into the side of the couch and dragged them down, leaving some gnarly marks. Of course, I realized, I forgot to take the cat scratcher. The problem is that I live in a one-bedroom apartment — I don’t have the extra space for a large cat tree with a built-in scratching post. The cheapest and easiest solution seemed to be to get one of those cardboard scratching pads, but I know from growing up with cats that bits of cardboard usually end up on the floor in seconds.
After looking around for a scratching post that wouldn’t take up a lot of space or make a lot of mess while still giving her room to stretch out and scratch to her heart’s content, I finally found one at IKEA that fit the bill exactly.
The LURVIG Scratching Mat is only $12.99 and is designed to wrap around a table leg and Velcro securely in place. Since the product wasn’t available at my local IKEA, I ended up buying it on Amazon. It was twice the price there, but $24 still seemed reasonable and worth the potential promise of saving my couch.
The real test came when the package arrived. I was optimistic about it, but knowing how fickle cats can be (she won’t play with the toys I lovingly buy her, but she will play with my hair ties while they’re still on my wrist) I wasn’t sure if she’d go for it. It took all of 30 seconds to set it up on my desk leg and then, to my delight, I showed it to my cat and she immediately went to town.
I never imagined myself as a sad beige mom, but I love that this IKEA solution is a nice neutral color that goes relatively unnoticed in my living room. Not to mention, it takes up zero space and quite ingeniously turns a table leg into a cat scratcher, solving my biggest (literally) pet peeve. Since the scratcher is made of jute and sisal, it is a satisfying surface to grip and has not yet lost interest.
Although they still scratch other surfaces from time to time, it is much less and easily redirected. Of all the things I’ve bought her so far, this might be the best money I’ve spent on pet products.