In 2018, we adopted two nine-month-old kittens, Jack and Zanzibar. Jack developed a deep love for dinner time. The dining room became his favorite place, and the door frame leading into it became his favorite scratching post.

We tried redirecting him. Repeatedly. It didn't work. So we went looking for something to stop the damage. What we found was disappointing — the only real option was thin, sticky-backed plastic film that felt more like a temporary deterrent than a real solution.

Unimpressed, I decided to make my own. Using what I had on hand — cardboard, sisal rope, hot glue, and hook-and-loop tape — I put together something that was, well, UGLY. But it was never meant to be seen by anyone; it only existed to solve one specific problem for one specific cat.

Jack adopted that scratcher immediately. It became his go-to spot every night before dinner and it stayed in use, showing every sign of heavy love, for years.

But eventually Jack and the other cats moved on to other door frames and in early 2024 we were staring at our doorways, frustrated by the damage. Our house was full of scratching posts, cat trees, and door-hung scratchers, but the cats were still scratching the door frames.

I decided to dig into the why and what I learned surprised me; scratching is tied to territory marking — making door frames the perfect scratching posts. 1) They don’t move. 2) They provide plenty of space for stretching. 3) And they are the entry points to a cat’s favorite spaces. It was then that I realized this wasn’t a behavior problem, it was instinct and something I needed to work with.

Along the way, I also discovered that we weren't the only ones dealing with this. Cat parents everywhere were fighting the same losing battle with their cats and their door frames.

So I went back to that first – ugly and very worn scratcher – with a new perspective and a better understanding of cat behavior. I, with engineering help from my husband, refined it into something worth sharing — refillable, planet-friendly, and built for life with cats. Jack’s Scratcher is the better way to protect door frames from cat scratches.