This is a specific conversation about Cat scratching furniture — redirect it properly — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
A Turkish Van going hard at the furniture — that tracks completely. They're big, athletic cats with serious scratching drives, and a flimsy post just isn't going to cut it. Scratching is totally normal behaviour: they're conditioning their claws and leaving scent markers, so the goal isn't to stop it — it's to give them something better to scratch than your sofa. The key is matching the post to how your cat actually scratches. Before I point you in the right direction, can you tell me: is your Van going for vertical surfaces, horizontal ones, or both? And what's the material they keep returning to — fabric, leather, wood?
Mainly vertical — the corner of the sofa and the doorframe. It's a fabric sofa. He really goes for it, like full body weight leaning in. I've tried two scratching posts already and he knocked both over.
inparticular.ai
That full-body-lean thing is exactly why standard posts fail — most are too short and too light for a cat his size. Turkish Vans are large cats and they need to fully extend when they scratch, which means you need height and serious ballast at the base. What posts did you try before? I'm guessing they were the standard 60–70cm carpet-covered type?
Yes, exactly that. One was carpet, one was sisal but still the same wobbly kind. He just demolished them.
inparticular.ai
Right, sisal is the right material — cats almost always prefer it over carpet because the texture mimics bark — but the structure has to match the cat. For a 3-year-old Van who leans his full weight in, I'd go straight to the Feandrea Cat Scratching Post, the tall sisal version at around 95cm. It has a wide, heavy base with an optional wall anchor point, and the sisal column is thick enough to take sustained abuse. It's specifically built for large cats. He'll be able to stretch fully, it won't wobble, and because it's sisal he's far more likely to choose it over the fabric sofa corner.
That sounds good. Should I put it right next to the sofa, or does that look weird?
inparticular.ai
Put it right next to the sofa — ideally right in front of the corner he's been using. It looks a bit odd for about two weeks, and then you gradually move it a few centimetres a day once he's committed to using it. If you move it straight to the 'tidy' spot across the room, he'll just go back to the sofa. Also worth rubbing a little catnip into the sisal the first day to make it immediately appealing. Once he's reliably using the post, the sofa corner becomes less interesting on its own.
Perfect, that makes sense. I'll give that a go.
Your situation is probably different. Get a specific answer for yours.
