Scent to try us?

[Lilith]

Today my ex, Adrian, came round and sat in the garden, accompanied by his Iphone, which he put by his side in its leather cover. Molly was enchanted! She wouldn't leave it alone. Well, she's a Jekyll and hide character at the best of times. When he got up for a moment and put the phone on the chair seat she took possession and bit me when I coaxed her down.

I wondered if I could get her a leather toy and found a small suede frog on Amazon for less than £4, free delivery. Have ordered two.

Cats do get obsessed with smells ... Perhaps leather is the new catnip?

[Kay]

given the number of cats who lie on shoes, you could be on to something there - I always thought it was the smell of human feet which was the attraction, but maybe it's the smell of leather after all

[booktigger]

Lucy has a shoe obsession but I'm vegi and don't wear leather

[Ruth B]

I actually do leather working, selling goods at craft fairs. My house smells of leather as I have several half hides of various thicknesses rolled up in a corner, the worst thing is, I can't smell it any more.

The cats aren't generally bothered by it, however when I have some long thin strips cut of edges they do make great cat toys.

One word of warning, I use veg tanned leather only, it's tanned using the naturally occurring tannin in the bark, wood and leaves of plants, primarily Oak. A lot of what you can buy, particularly the cheaper leather is tanned using either chrome salts, or is what is referred to as 'chrome free' (to try and give it a better image), and uses formaldehyde in the tanning process. All the tanning processes have a chance to leave a residue on the leather fibers but veg tanned is certainly the least harmful, while there shouldn't be a problem with any type of leather I wouldn't want any of my cats chewing chrome or chrome free leather for any great amount of time.

Just to add to it, the cheap imitation leather that is about these days (also referred to as 'Vegan Leather') tends to be Polyurethane (as opposed to the poly vinyl chloride or PVC they used to use),it's still a plastic formed over a fiber mesh to give the desired shape, and like most plastics it isn't biodegradable. I do my best to discourage my cats from eating any type of plastic (though Tiggy does try hard to locate and chew bags and plastic wrap of items).

[Lilith]

So it's other cats too, not just my madam.

She didn't try to lick or chew the case, just rub her face and play, but when the frogs come I'll watch her - never thought about the tanning process. I used to chew the strap of my school satchel ... perhaps that's why I grew up such an oddity ...

Hey they've changed the format on here haven't they? Well, to anyone who read this full paragraph (now edited) I thought they HAD, but my pc did something strange, honestly, the usernames were on the left instead of the right and there was no user info, also my pc enlarged the text ...

Sorry about that!

It's the silly season ...

[Janey]

My cat likes plastic, I have to be very careful there’s none left lying around! She also likes my hubby’s armpits

[Lilith]

Lol Janey when A and I were together the cats used to go mad for his squash gear ... the shirt armpits, even though these would have been worn by a clean man who showered before changing. It was always the boy cats too ... every washday I used to hike out the clothes basket contents and separate them into cottons, synthetics and stoned tomcats ...

By the way, useful tip in case any fellow sufferer has an evil pc who enlarges the screen, or, conversely, would like to enlarge the screen for easier reading, just press 'Ctrl' and either minus or plus. Job done

[Ruth B]

Tiggy, my plastic loving cat, also has a thing for armpits and rucksack straps, which of course tuck under your armpits. Fortunately she hasn't got in the laundry basket so for me it's just a case of sorting out dark and light items.

I do tend to leave some of the heavier weight carrier bags around for her to get to, she can lick and chew those without tearing bits off and ingesting it, if I didn't she would hunt around and find whatever she could, even pulling bins over to get at something in them.