Buddy 5, Marti 1

When you are a woodworker, you naturally have a lot of wood in your garage. Or maybe that's not natural. Hubby's dad always had a few scraps of plywood and laminate between the ceiling joists in his shop, a bin of lumber cutoffs, and some larger lumber stacked under his workbenches. But he was a professional builder; we're not. After we got rid of most of our lumber when we sold our last house, I said I didn't want to have a stash of lumber here. That is hard to do when building a home, so we have stacks of lumber in the garage, ready for the next project.

We also have a cat who spends most of his time in the garage, in fact, after we discovered that he was enjoying a nightly visit with a skunk, he's been spending ALL his time in the garage. At our last house, most of our lumber was stacked on shelves and out of his reach, but here, it is stacked on pallets on the floor. I hope you see where I am going with this. Until lately, Buddy has been very good about scratching only on his scratching board, which is a cut off piece of decking. After he had an ingrown claw, I took him to the vet and they cut his all his claws very short - too short to sharpen on his board. It was probably a month before he could sharpen his claws again and for some reason, he decided that ALL the lumber in the garage was at his disposal. We covered the lumber with tarps but that was more of a pain for us, so I took action.

The vet suggested we mount a small tree trunk to a platform. I relayed this message to Hubby, and he brought in a tree limb. Buddy didn't know what to do with it, and it was so small that there was no way to mount it on a platform. I tossed that, and looked for another option that looked nothing like lumber. I had once built him a scratching post covered with jute rope and he hated that. I had also bought a cardboard scratcher that came with catnip, and all he wanted to do was snuggle on it. I decided to give the cardboard scratcher another try, but without the catnip this time.

I placed it on the floor and then put him on it. He walked off. I placed him back on it and mimic'd scratching on the cardboard. He walked off. I placed him back on the board and pulled him across the cardboard. He laid his ears back and walked off. Obviously, this is going to require more thought.

I've noticed that Buddy usually scratches right after waking so the logical thing to do would be to put the scratcher next to his sleeping spot. Except that he didn't have just one sleeping spot. I put it next to his padded bed and I never saw him sleep there again. I put it next to his water bowl and then he started drinking out of a condensation bucket. The only thing that has no options is the litter box. So I put it beside the litter box. He leaped over it to get to the litter box, and leaped over it to get out. I was going to have to start thinking like the cat, the self-centered, narcissistic, greedy, cat.

I unpacked some dishes and put the now empty box near the scratcher. I've learned from experience that if I put Buddy in a box, he will jump right out and run away. He cannot become one with the box unless he discovers it for himself. So I dropped the box in plain sight and left. I peeked out a few minutes later and Buddy was investigating the box. A couple of hours later he was fast asleep in the box but I pretended I didn't know where he was, another odd thing about Buddy and maybe all cats is that they like hiding places they think are secret, and I walked away from the box calling him until I heard him rattle out of the box. Then I picked him up, placed him on the scratcher, and he walked over to the nearest stack of lumber. I picked him up again and this time planted his feet on the scratcher and pulled him across it. Then I took him to his bowl and gave him a treat. Every few hours I repeated this. By the next day, I only had to place him on the scratcher and he would give it a half-hearted scratch. I helped him scratch with gusto and then gave him a treat. The next time, I just stood by the scratcher and called him to me. He came over and I said "Scratch!"

He looked over his shoulder at me, put one foot on the scratcher and headed to the food bowl. Not so fast buster! I picked him up, took him through the scratching routine, and then gave him a treat. Later that afternoon, I heard the sound of scratching on wood, looked up and he was giving a plywood cut off a workout routine that Jillian Michaels would be proud of. I ANKED him, ran over to grab him, and placed him on the scratcher. Nothing doing. He tried to retract his claws when I dragged him across it. But he still expected a treat. I gave him one instead of four. The next time I went out, I happened to stand by the water bucket which holds down the scratcher, and he walked over, put his paws on the scratcher and looked up at me. "Scratch!" I said. And he did! Four treats.

I'm still waiting for the day he walks over to it by himself and starts scratching, but in the meantime, I'll keep the treats handy.