Cats and white leather furniture?

SirenSongWoman

SirenSongWoman

Cathlete
Okay, my indoor cats are all front paw declawed (yea, I know). My next sofa has to be white or close to it or my tiny living room will look like a closet. However, with five (soon to be six now that I only have one remaining Kitchen Cat) cats I got to wondering if leather would be the smartest way to go. My reasoning? I can just blow the hair off my sofa, instead of constantly fighting with a vacuum hose and a rubber glove to pull the hairs loose from the weave.

I'm not buying anything any time soon but, before I get too wrapped-up in my white leather fantasy I thought I'd better find out if it would be worth the price. I'm asking because I have a velvet chair that's LOADED with holes from my cats rear claws. Evidently, they sink their back claws in to push off, for traction... I don't want back claw holes all over white leather so I figured I'd better ask if this could, indeed, be a real problem.

I'm looking hard at Macy's Vice Versa ensemble because each piece is separate and the whole thing is real versatile.

http://www1.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=251406&PseudoCat=se-xx-xx-xx.esn_results
 
Stacey, as you know from my post today, I am new again to owning a cat. The furniture at my house is an early 1980's fabric covered sectional (thanks, mom :mad:) and I would be thrilled if it got destroyed.:D My bf was considering getting leather furniture but with our new acquisition, he's nixing that idea. I know there are people here that have way more experience than I do with this but since you're already seeing claw marks on your velvet furniture, I think that's giving you your answer to leather furniture. Sorry. :( I have to say, though, that the furniture looks beautiful! Would you want to use slip covers and then remove them when you have company? Of course then you can't enjoy the beauty of the furniture. I hope you get some more suggestions that may give you a satisfying solution. If you want, you can have the furniture shipped to me and then my bf can keep our cat full time and I can send you updated pics on how your furniture is doing. Does that work?????? :p

Bam
 
We have leather and indoor cats, with claws in tact. They actually do not like to sit or lay down on the leather. So far only one scratch in five years and that was due to human over handling of the cat. They do land on the leather as they are jumping from window to floor, but I have not seen a single hole. :)
 
BAM said:
Stacey, as you know from my post today, I am new again to owning a cat. The furniture at my house is an early 1980's fabric covered sectional (thanks, mom :mad:) and I would be thrilled if it got destroyed.:D My bf was considering getting leather furniture but with our new acquisition, he's nixing that idea. I know there are people here that have way more experience than I do with this but since you're already seeing claw marks on your velvet furniture, I think that's giving you your answer to leather furniture. Sorry. :( I have to say, though, that the furniture looks beautiful! Would you want to use slip covers and then remove them when you have company? Of course then you can't enjoy the beauty of the furniture. I hope you get some more suggestions that may give you a satisfying solution. If you want, you can have the furniture shipped to me and then my bf can keep our cat full time and I can send you updated pics on how your furniture is doing. Does that work?????? :p

Bam
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That's a can-do... as soon as you send me the money :D:D:D.
 
Janis said:
We have leather and indoor cats, with claws in tact. They actually do not like to sit or lay down on the leather. So far only one scratch in five years and that was due to human over handling of the cat. They do land on the leather as they are jumping from window to floor, but I have not seen a single hole. :)
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You are giving me hope. Also, one of the customer reviews was from a woman with big dogs and she said they're on the furniture all the time, with no damage. Dogs have claws, right?

My cats don't dig their claws into any other piece of furniture in the house but that velvet chair. I'm thinking of just getting armless pieces (except the corner seat), since the claw marks are all on the arms of the velvet chair. Also, the seats of the sectional are too deep to clear the cushion if digging into the backs for traction. Hopefully, they won't try that. But as any cat owner knows, cats are talented :(.
 
Sorry to report this but my co-worker has a cat and a leather sofa and yes she said she does have holes on it from them pushing off.

Susan
 
susandean said:
Sorry to report this but my co-worker has a cat and a leather sofa and yes she said she does have holes on it from them pushing off.

Susan
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Interesting.

We have two leather coach sets, not one single claw hole in either set.

SirenSong, your kitties will probably continue to prefer the velvet chair. You can always discourage bad behavior by a squirt of water. :p Our cats take off just hearing the little pump sound coming from the handle before the water even comes out!
 
Hi Stacey,

We have to indoor cats (one front declawed, one with all claws intact) and they have jumped on our brown leather sofa for three years. I had the same concerns as you but loved leather and decided to go ahead and get it. I am so glad I did! Leather sits and wears like nothing else and you don't have the gobs of cat hair clinging to it like upholstery. The cats haven't done any damage to the leather that I can find. Go for it!
 
We had leather furniture BEFORE we got our 2 cats. They have all their claws, and yes, they have used it for a scratching post. I do have out a CAT scratching post and one on the floor (the cardboard one that they love), but they have stilled used the corners of our furniture.

*sigh*

And I have no idea on how to repair it.

I do LOVE the leather in the fact that anything that has spilled on it (or one of the kids had bodily fluids on it, by accident), it's easily cleaned.

The cats will only lay on it if there is a blanket covering it. othersise, they're not so big on sleeping directly on the leather.
 
Stacy,

I don't have cats, but I have owned white leather years ago. The downside to white leather is the white finish wears off which gives the leather a dingy dirty look.
As much as I love the look, it didn't hold up to normal wear and tear- we didn't have animals back then.
 
I have a brown leather chair, new this year and a cat new this year. He actually loves to sleep on this chair but has not done any damage to it. I use soft claws on his front claws, which are plastic caps glued on. He is a VERY tolerant cat, so this is easy for me to do. My niece has a grumpy butt cat, and she tried it and was not successful. I also think because I started doing it at 8 weeks, it helped. My cat did puncture a hole in my daughter's water bed. We found out she was teasing him, and he would push off really hard to get away, and it would leave pinprick wholes. So we clipped the back claws really close, and lectured her and that has not happened again.
 
Bad idea

My cat is declawed in the front, so we thought we were good to go with leather furniture. Well, not so much. When she jumped off the furniture, her back claws would come out, and tear the leather. We purchased a leather coffee table ottoman, and less than 2 weeks later, it looked like Freddy Krueger had gotten ahold of it. My husband was out of town, so I purchased another $500 ottoman and had them switched out before he noticed. Then, I purchased the invisible fence. It's great. The cat has not been near the leather furniture since.
 
It may depend on the cat.

We bought (brown) leather furniture after our 2 year old male cat was front declawed. He would dig his back claws in as he was pushing off and run up and down the sofa so it had quite a few claw holes. On the recliner, he was playing with my DH and actually scraped the foot stool in such a way that it was very noticeable.

We purchased a warranty with it when we bought it and I specifically asked the salesman about cats and he assured me that the warranty covered everything. This wasn't true. (Imagine that!) The warranty doesn't cover animals at all. We no longer have our cat, (long story but he is with MIL now) and we have replaced our clawed up furniture with new leather.

Good luck with what you decide. It's beautiful furniture. and looks very comfortable.
 
Oh man. I'm really glad all of you responded, though I'm pretty disappointed. Lots of stuff to consider... But I must say I'm especially interested in the whole invisible fence thing, though it would mean special collars for SIX CATS... My brother did this in his living room and only Chewy (kitty) is allowed in there. When everyone congregates there the dogs stand outside and jealously watch Chewy getting her fluffy bum rubbed :p.
 
Janis said:
We have leather and indoor cats, with claws in tact. They actually do not like to sit or lay down on the leather. So far only one scratch in five years and that was due to human over handling of the cat. They do land on the leather as they are jumping from window to floor, but I have not seen a single hole. :)
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I have leather and 2 indoor cats, one being de-clawed(front only). I have had leather for about a year and there are scratches on it from claws. One likes to sleep on leather, onelikes to chase the other and go over the leather. Must admit the scratches are mostly on the foor rests...doesn't really bother me. Also have two dogs that are mostly outdoor but do come in now and then. THEY LOVE to sleep on the leather-no problem there:) Go for the leather!
 
It seems that just like people, everyone's cats are different here! I had black leather furniture and my cat didn't ever scratch it. Instead, he would scratch his claws on my wood moulding! When I got rid of the leather and bought a fabric couch, he started clawing it. My concern would be do you want to take the chance that ALL of your cats would leave it alone?

Carrie
 
carres1973 said:
It seems that just like people, everyone's cats are different here! I had black leather furniture and my cat didn't ever scratch it. Instead, he would scratch his claws on my wood moulding! When I got rid of the leather and bought a fabric couch, he started clawing it. My concern would be do you want to take the chance that ALL of your cats would leave it alone?

Carrie
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I just don't know. I have five cats (and the last remaining Kitchen Cat/stray, who has claws, will probably be officially joining the family) and their personalities are all different. I think only one pushes off the velvet chair but anything can happen. It will be a long time before I have to decide so I'm glad I'm considering all the pros and cons now.

But yea, isn't it weird how kitty behavior runs the spectrum?
 
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