Cat scratching carpet at closed doors. What gives?

Hello everyone!

I live in a four cat household. We have to keep the group separated as my two original cats have not taken very well to my wife's two additions since we got married. It's been nearly a year and we've learned to keep the groups apart or fur will be flying and blood will be shed. (That's not exaggerated, it's straight up war of the cats if they get in the same room)

That being said we have had no problems for the past year keeping them apart but now all of the sudden the most dominant of my male adult cats is scratching and clawing at the carpet under the shut door where the two female cats are located on the other side that we're keeping separate. All cats are spayed/neutered so I have absolutely no idea why after nearly a year the cat is deciding to dig up carpet like crazy by closed doors? We have tried deterrents to no avail. He has a large cat tree which he likes to sleep on top of but doesn't scratch very much.

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

Many thanks!
Gary

Two of my kitties are carpet scratchers too! UGH...it can really damage the carpet so I understand what you are going through.

What we ended up doing was to get some clear, soft plastic floor runners and cutting them to the same width as the doorway. They are usually about 3 feet wide so each side of the door gets about a foot and 1/2 of the mat. That's the only thing we've found to save the carpeting. They will now just lay on the mat and sniff the cats on the other side of the door - but no scratching

As for changing that behavior, I've personally never found anything that has worked with my cats.

We had that issue here too. One of our females does not like the fact that one of our males breathes the same air. He thinks she walks on air. Goofy cats.

I have found that putting a throw rug or mat so it straddles the two rooms helps. They still destroy the mat but at least the carpet survives.