Microfiber: The Miracle Fabric Cats Won’t Scratch

By Dorian Wagner

If you have cats, chances are you also have a shredded piece of furniture -- or two. The edge of the couch, the corner of your bed, the side of your favorite chair -- they’re all fair game as far as your cat and its claws are concerned.

You’ve probably tried to lure your cat’s claws away from your nice furniture with various kinds of scratching posts or cardboard scratch boxes, only to find out your cat would rather sleep on its new scratcher than scratch it, and your couch is still suffering.

If this is you and you’re at your wits’ end, I’m about to change your world: Get a microfiber couch.

My oldest cat has personally retired three couches in his 12 years of living with me. It’s his claim to fame, and I figured I’d just be resigned to shredded furniture. Part of having a cat, right? Until someone told me about microfiber.

Microfiber fabric is soft and smooth, which is the exact opposite of the type of fabric cats like to scratch. Cats scratch to file their nails, and this fabric won’t help them there -- and they know it. I’ve had my microfiber couch for almost two years, and it doesn’t have a single snag, tear, hole or pull. Any of my other couches would have looked like a bird’s nest by now.

Besides being scratch-resistant, microfiber is a fairly tough fabric. I’ve heard claws go in, and the occasional crazy cat will fling himself off the side, but I never notice a claw mark or poke. All in all, it’s a great couch fabric for people who have cats that like to scratch.