A number of punishment-based methods were used by owners to prevent cats from scratching inappropriate items and included yelling, clapping, spraying water or air, shaking a rattle can, throwing things at the cat, and spanking the cat. None of these methods were found to be effective. Owners who attempted to teach their cats to scratch a designated item by placing the cat near the scratch post/pad actually caused their cats to be less likely to scratch the designated item as compared with owners who did not use this method. Although this study did not identify any method that may help increase the incidence of appropriate scratching, the aforementioned previous survey found that owners who rewarded their cat for appropriate scratching saw an increase in their cat using the preferred scratch post.4