Nebelung not scratching? Vet claw health fix

A vet flag on claw health is worth taking seriously — especially with a 10-year-old Nebelung who's gone quiet on scratching. Scratching is completely normal cat behaviour: it maintains claws, stretches muscles and marks territory. The issue isn't that your cat is bad at it, it's that older cats sometimes lose the habit or the motivation, and that can let claws thicken and overgrow. The fix is usually finding the right post in the right spot — one that actually matches how your cat used to scratch. Can you tell me: does your Nebelung tend to scratch vertically (reaching up a surface) or horizontally (on the floor)? And do you have any existing posts they've shown even mild interest in before?

That tells me a lot. Reaching up the sofa corner means she wants a tall vertical surface — she's stretching her full body when she scratches, which is really important for older cats to keep that shoulder and spine mobility going. The small carpet post almost certainly isn't tall enough for her to get a proper stretch, and carpet texture often doesn't give cats the satisfying drag that fabric or sisal does. What material is the sofa corner she was using — is it fabric, leather, or something else?

Perfect — rough-weave fabric lovers almost always take well to sisal rope, because it gives that same satisfying resistance and texture. For a senior cat who needs motivation to re-engage with scratching, I'd recommend the SmartyKat Sisal Angle Scratcher or, better for a vertical scratcher her size, the Rosewood Boredom Breaker Scratch Post — it's tall enough for a full adult cat stretch, sisal-wrapped, and has a stable weighted base so it won't wobble and put her off. That wobble is a surprisingly common reason cats abandon posts. Place it right next to the sofa corner she used to use — location matters as much as the post itself at first.

Fair concern. With a senior cat who's gone low-motivation, placement is your biggest lever — put it exactly where the old scratching happened, not in a corner of the room. You can also rub a little dried catnip into the sisal fibres at nose height to get her interested initially. If she sniffs it and walks away the first few days, don't move it — cats often take a week or two to adopt a new post. The goal right now is just getting her claws moving regularly again to prevent thickening, so even a few scratches a day is a win at this stage.

Yes — it's worth doing a gentle claw check every couple of weeks. Senior cats' claws can curve and grow into the paw pad if they're not wearing them down, which is painful and needs a vet visit. You don't need to trim them yourself if that feels daunting, but just look for any curling. Keep the vet in the loop too — they may want to do a light trim at her next checkup as a baseline. The post will help, but at 10 it's worth that bit of extra attention alongside it.