Repairing a Sisal Wrapped Cat Scratching Post

Supplies:

• existing sisal covered scratching post
• spool of sisal - make sure you purchase a brand that is recommended for cat posts. Some sisal has been chemically treated; you do not want that kind. You can smell the spool at a home improvement store to check if the labeling does not say.
• scissors
• hot glue gun and glue sticks

Make sure that you purchase sisal that is intended for this purpose or that has not been treated. I recently redid this post a second time with the incorrect type and had to remove the new sisal. On close examination I noticed a very distinctive chemical odor. The cats would not use the most recent fix until I removed the new material and used sisal approved for scratching posts.

Steps:

This can be done by one person, but we found that it worked much better with two. One person applied the glue and the other attached the sisal, adjusting and tightening as we went.

1. Cut the damaged sisal and remove from the post down to the intact part at the bottom.

 
2. Cut off the unwound sisal.

 

 
3. Begin running a bead of glue around the circumference of the post and wrap the sisal tightly, pressing into the glue.

 
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4. Continue until you either reach the top, or in our case the intact sisal near the top. Cut the sisal and glue the end. We needed to insert a small length to fill a bit of a gap where we ended. Now your kitties are back in the scratching post business.

 

 

I did notice it took a day or so for them to start using the repaired post. I assume that either the glue or the sisal had an odor that needed to dissipate first.