Scratching Posts

Now puss mates, scratching posts are very important. Humans pay for the services of nail technicians. Tough old pusses don't need to pay to keep their claws nice and keenly honed. We can keep them ready for deployment in any situation. After all they're brilliant tools for hooking, climbing, giving intruder cats a slash, or giving your human the odd playful scar. (You know, keep them in their place and all that! Ten points if you get them on the forehead! Serves them right for peering so closely at you when you've got the grumps.) Well, we are cats, aren't we! Yep, long live the old unpredictable mood swings!
I have heard tell that some cats over the pond have their hooks removed! Coo, heaven knows what those guys do when they need a good stretch; padding about indoors all day in their slippers! They probably won't be needing a scratching post anyway - be like kneading dough wouldn't it?
I'm rather proud to say that I don't use the soft furnishings in my house to sharpen the old slashers. Nope! (At least not when anyone's looking)! I have two scratching posts outside. There's a trellis round our front door and when the humans come home, I always stretch up the right hand trellis post (has to be the right hand one) to greet my owners. It's my way of saying,"Welcome home, folks." And after fifteen years of whittling, I'm proud to say it is considerably thinner than the left hand post. Great stuff, eh? Me, a skilled carver!
The second one is the bird table support in the back garden. That's just to give the old dicky birds a reminder that I'm about in the mornings.
Just one more thing while we're on the subject of claws, and that is to warn you about bobble squidging. My owners have discovered that if they gently squidge my bobbley fingers, 'hey presto!' My claws extend involuntarily. Now Mr Human sometimes does this absentmindedly. Bit of a sauce really, isn't it? However, I don't mind so much because inadvertently, he cleans out those bits of mud that get lodged between the toes from mucky forays outside. He doesn't even know where I've been, does he! Yuuck!
Must go now cats. Get sharpening!