A free guide from Mewnook. No email required, no download, no upsell at the end — just the thing we would tell a friend who had bought one of our fittings.
Why cats ignore enrichment products
Most grooming and scratching products fail for one of three reasons: they are placed where the human wants them rather than where the cat already goes; they offer one surface, so novelty runs out in a week; or they move when the cat leans in, which teaches the cat the thing is not safe to use. Everything below is built around those three failures.
Day 1 — Find the corner, do not choose it
Spend a day watching where your cat already rubs its cheeks and where it scratches. Cheek-rubbing is scent marking: the corner of a wall, the edge of a door frame, the corner of a kitchen unit. Scratching is usually near where the cat sleeps or where it greets you at the door. Those two places are rarely the same, and neither is usually where you would have put a cat tree.
Mark both. That is where the fittings go.
Day 2 — Fit it low, fit it solid
Fit the groomer at your cat's shoulder height, not yours. A cat using a corner groomer leans its whole weight into it; if it shifts even slightly, most cats stop using it after a few tries. Screw fitting is the safest option on plaster and wood. If drilling is out of the question, clean the surface with a dry cloth first — adhesive pads fail on dust more often than on the wrong surface.
For the scratch mat, cut it slightly larger than the patch your cat is already using, not smaller. A mat that covers half the scratched area simply moves the problem to the exposed half.
Day 3 — Do not introduce it
Resist the urge to carry your cat over and rub its face against the brush. Forced introductions create avoidance. Fit it and walk away. Most cats investigate within the first day on their own schedule.
Day 4 — Add a reason, not a bribe
If there is no interest by day four, a pinch of catnip on the fitting works for roughly two cats in three. Use a small amount: more is not better, and a strong hit once is less useful than a light touch repeated across a week. Cats that do not respond to catnip often respond to silvervine or to simply having the fitting near their feeding route instead.
Day 5 — Check the height and the angle
If your cat approaches but does not use it, the fitting is usually two or three inches too high. Cats groom their cheeks and jaw against something at head height while standing — not while stretching up. Moving a groomer down a few centimetres rescues more installations than any other change.
Day 6 — Give the scratching somewhere to go
Scratching is stretching, marking and claw maintenance in one. A cat that scratches the sofa arm vertically will not switch to a horizontal pad on the floor. Match the direction: if the damage runs up and down, the mat goes on a vertical surface.
Day 7 — Leave it alone for a month
Cat habits settle over weeks, not days. Do not move a fitting that is getting occasional use; moving it restarts the clock. If after a month a fitting is genuinely unused, move it to the second place on your Day 1 list.
Honest expectations
Enrichment is not behaviour correction. A corner groomer reduces loose fur around the house and gives a cat a reliable scent post. A scratch mat gives claws a better target than your furniture. Neither guarantees your cat stops doing something it has always done, and anyone promising that is selling you something. If a fitting genuinely does not work for your cat, the 14-day UK cancellation right applies.
What we make
Our Enrichment Kit pairs the two surfaces this guide is built around. If you only need one, the Corner Groomer and the Scratch Mat are sold separately, and the Two-Cat Set covers two corners.