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Feb. 20th, 2024 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
violsvaI wonder when cats started scratching the furniture.
No, really. Modern upholstery techniques are only a couple of centuries old. Carpets are much older, but also rarer. Most people, as I understand it, covered their floors with mats woven out of rushes or straw (if they covered them with anything). While that does sound like exactly the kind of thing a cat would love to tear up, I feel like if you’re making your floor coverings literally out of grass you’re probably not super concerned about durability?
Presumably there’d be wooden furniture to scratch, but none of my cats have ever bothered with the wooden furniture.
So, when did cats scratching the furniture become an actual problem? Who was the first person to find out that cats like scratching upholstery? (Who was the first cat to find out how awesome it is to tear up the upholstery?)
No, really. Modern upholstery techniques are only a couple of centuries old. Carpets are much older, but also rarer. Most people, as I understand it, covered their floors with mats woven out of rushes or straw (if they covered them with anything). While that does sound like exactly the kind of thing a cat would love to tear up, I feel like if you’re making your floor coverings literally out of grass you’re probably not super concerned about durability?
Presumably there’d be wooden furniture to scratch, but none of my cats have ever bothered with the wooden furniture.
So, when did cats scratching the furniture become an actual problem? Who was the first person to find out that cats like scratching upholstery? (Who was the first cat to find out how awesome it is to tear up the upholstery?)